KOTA OBAMBA RELIEF FIGURE, Okonja region, Haut... Lot 4
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KOTA OBAMBA RELIEF FIGURE, Okonja region, Haut Ogooué, Gabon
Wood, copper alloy, accidents.
H. 43 cm
Mbulu Ngulu in the characteristic style of the Okonja and Otala region, where a handful of sculptors at the end of the 19th century departed from the archetypal Kota forms to create works with lines that are as innovative as they are bold.
Plated with metal on the obverse, it is adorned with a face that is energized by an oblique and concave-convex gaze, pierced at the pupils. The nose in a straight volume extends the rib crossing the forehead, made of a metal band. The mouth digs into the lower part of the chin, sculpted in a second moment. A crescent at the top runs in a narrow band to the tips of the cheeks. The whole veneer is richly decorated with pointillist motifs and short doubled arches, more significantly inscribed on both sides of the frontal rib and the lower part of the face. The reverse side, left raw, is soberly crossed by a longitudinal rib.
The diamond-shaped base is thin, and quite compact, unlike the works from southern Gabon. The stapling of the metal plates attests to an ancient traditional work.
Within a limited corpus, this work is to be compared with a reliquary figure kept at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac in Paris (inventory no. 71.1935.80.111), donated by André Even before 1935.
PROVENANCE: collected in situ by Alexandre Dubroca (1899-1967), administrator in Gabon from 1930 to 1962; private collection, Paris, transmitted by family descent.
See Chafin, p. 253, fig. 151 for an example of the same type.
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