This is the rating and price for Mumuye Standing Male Figure, 2000

Description : MUMUYE, Nigeria Standing Male Figure Wood The Mumuye are subsistence farmers whose political structure is provided by a village chief and a council of elder males. The men's society initiates boys at about ten years of age, and they move upward through its various grades, gaining wisdom and power with age. All ranks of the men's society use art objects (iagalagana) as they regulate social and religious life. Mumuye figures have many roles and are capable of filling more than one of them simultaneously. When kept in the men's house for that purpose, they help initiate the boys. They may also be brought out and sworn upon in a dispute at law, or used by diviners or healers for the diagnosis and curing of the sick. They may greet a rainmaker's clients, guard their owner's house, enhance his status and, if he chooses, enter into a dialogue with him for his personal protection. It is generally accepted that these figures are tutelary or guardian spirits, not gods. Mumuye figures are highly abstracted, often with simple, rounded heads and abrupt, angular planes defining a relationship of positive and negative space between the free-hanging arms and the torso. The arms, which may be depicted as part of the shoulder area, as in the present figure, seem to wrap around the torso. Hips and legs may be reduced to rhythmically angular forms with knees and feet jutting forward. Often the only way to distinguish a male figure from a female one is by the ears, which are longer and pierced for earplugs in some female figures. Provenance: From the Estate of Liz Claiborne and Arthur Ortenberg Sotheby's, African, Oceanic, and Pre-Columbian Art, November 18 & 20, 2000, lot 105 Drs. Nicole and John Dintenfass, New York Marcelle Riviere, Paris Maurice Nicaud, Paris Height: 14 ¼ inches
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Estimate (low-high) : 4000 USD-6000 USD It's free to register now to view!

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