Female statuette, called a za mä or metal figure,... Lot 35

Female statuette, called a za mä or metal figure, depicted standing with a high crested headdress with side braids. The eyes are slit and the mouth projected forward shows teeth. Scarifications on the back and stomach. She is wearing a red cloth loincloth. Bronze with high copper content. Height: 20.5 cm. Liberia or Republic of the Ivory Coast. Dan ethnic group. This may be the work of the sculptor Ldamie (deceased circa 1947?) from the town of Gaple, who was active in Liberia in the 1920s-1930s and is known for creating a highly sought-after body of large male and female figures in bronze. The Ldamie artist was discovered, named and photographed by Etta Becker-Donner in the 1930s and then re-identified 50 years later in the same photograph by Barbara Johnson with the artist's descendants. According to William C. Siegmann, Curator Emeritus of the Arts of Africa and the Pacific Islands Brooklyn Museum and specialist in the arts of Liberia and Sierra Leone, "small cast brass figurines were originally made as prestige objects for chiefs and other high-ranking individuals, and later also for missionaries and other visitors. "Dr. Rudolf Fuszek (1882-1941) of Budapest was among the first to collect related figurines in the 1920s, and Etta Becker-Donner acquired additional works by Ldamie in the 1930s for ethnographic museums in Berlin and Vienna. Harley (Schwab) illustrated works by Ldamie in "Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland" (Vol. XXXI, Figure 68), which were also collected in the 1930s. The National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., has at least one figure collected before 1938." See similar pieces: former Leff collection, Parke Bernet sale, April 22, 1967 and others in the collections of the Rietberg Museum, Zurich; Baltimore Museum of Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts; The Brooklyn Museum and the Yale University Art Gallery.