Large Janus Mbulu-Viti reliquary figure, GABON, KOTA - Lot 69

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25000 - 35000 EUR
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Large Janus Mbulu-Viti reliquary figure, GABON, KOTA - Lot 69
Large Janus Mbulu-Viti reliquary figure, GABON, KOTA Southern Kota, Obamba, Mindumu, or Wumbu, Semangoy region of Zokolunga Franceville/Moanda region, Haut-Ogooué, Gabon Late 19th or early 20th century Wood, brass, copper, and iron. Later wooden base. H. 53.5 cm (excluding base) Provenance: Collected between 1913 and 1920 by a French civil servant. Lempertz, Brussels, April 26, 2008, lot 196. Belgian private collection. History of Attribution: At the 2008 Lempertz auction, Frédéric Cloth dated the work to the early 20th century and placed it most likely in southern Gabon, in the Moanda region. He considered it to be influenced by older workshops, such as that of Semangoy. He identified seven known reliquaries from the same artist or workshop, most of which were semi-convex in shape, with this one being the only one in the Janus form, and noted the nearly identical example in the Musée de l’Homme cited above. Note: Janus figures, known as mbulu-viti among the Southern Kota, account for less than 1% of the Kota corpus (Perrois, 2012); among the Obamba of Upper Ogooué, only about ten ancient examples are known. According to Efraïm Andersson’s field research in the 1930s, they were both older and socially more significant than single-faced figures (Contribution to the Ethnography of the Kuta, 1953, p. 342); the large examples are said to have preserved the relics of an entire lineage. Andersson’s informants, and later those of Perrois, identified the convex face with a domed forehead as masculine and the concave face as feminine, with the two faces expressing the primordial duality of man and woman. Andersson finally noted that the frontal headband worn by these figures was a mark of dignity for chiefs (1974). An effigy of an ancestor with two opposing faces, supported by a cylindrical neck encased in metal and an openwork, exposed diamond-shaped body with a dark brown, glossy patina. The main, convex face features an oval brass face with a strongly domed forehead, accentuated by a riveted red copper headband running across the eyes from one temple to the other. The features are modeled using repoussé: almond-shaped eyes with iron pupils, a triangular nose, and a mouth shaped like a thin crescent. The enveloping side headdresses extend into cylindrical pendants and are surmounted by a large crescent-shaped crest adorned, at its center, with a hatched triangular motif. The reverse, more schematic and virtually flat, is covered with dark metal plates that have been nailed in place; it features eyes in relief and a nose shaped like a folded leaf, with no mouth. This contrast between a strongly modeled convex side and a more abstract reverse is characteristic of Janus figures from the southern part of the Kota region. With its oval face, overhanging forehead, the band crossing the eyes, the broad transverse crescent, and its side headdresses with pendants, this figure belongs to the Moanda sub-style, whose center of production—as established by Dr. Andrault’s research in the early 1960s, published by Louis Perrois—was located in the village of Zokolunga, where the Wumbu sculptors Semangoy and Koba were active in the 19th century. The body of work associated with this workshop remains very limited: the Janus from the Dallas Museum of Art (inv. 2005.36McD), those in the Vérité collection (Enchères Rive Gauche, Paris, 2006, no. 214), and the Barbier-Mueller collection (Perrois, 1985, no. 11), the figure from the Fourquet collection (Sotheby’s, Paris, December 6, 2005), as well as two Janus figures sold at Christie’s, Paris, April 10, 2018, lot 51, and at Binoche & Giquello, Paris, November 6, 2020, lot 43. A specimen nearly identical to ours, of the same height and composition (convex face encircled by a riveted headband, crest with a hatched triangular motif, cylindrical pendants), is held at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (inv. 71.1949.20.4, formerly in the collection of the Musée de l’Homme, donated by Mlle Arsandaux, 1949). Condition: Good overall condition, showing signs of use. Cracks and small losses on the crest; a few missing rivets on the frontal band; localized lifting of the metal leaves on the side headpieces; a split in the nose of the reverse. An old crack in the tenon and a chip at the base of the diamond. The metal surfaces were likely cleaned in the past. References: E. Andersson, Contribution to the Ethnography of the Kuta, I, Uppsala, 1953; II, 1974. L. Perrois, Ancestral Art of Gabon in the Collections of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva, 1985. L. Perrois, Kota, Milan, 5 Continents, 2012. R. A. Walker, The Arts of Africa at the Dallas Museum of Art, 2009, cat. 69 We would like to thank Mr. Jan-Joris Visser for the information regarding the history of this sculpture.
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