Il lotto Lotto n° 82
Titolo : A Rare Southeast African Male And Female Pair
Dimensione : heights: 18 3/4 in. (male) and 18in. (female) 47.5cm and 45.5cmProvenienza : PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTIONNote : These figurines were made by a carver who worked in Natal (now KwaZulu/Natal) in the early 20th century. There are similar figurative pairs by this artist in the Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg, and in the Johannesburg Art Gallery's Brenthurst Collection (see JAG 1991: 94). The Natal Museum also has a female staff in this style. Another female staff, presumably by the same carver, was collected by the ethnographic photographer, Alfred Duggan Cronin, who left it to the McGregor Museum in Kimberley along with his collection of photographs and various other artifacts he had acquired during his travels in southern Africa in the course of the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, the staff and figurines now in the Natal Museum were not accessioned when they first entered that collection, but it is possible that the figurative staff collected by Duggan Cronin was acquired from a migrant working on the mines in Kimberley as early as the mid-1920s. Alternatively, he may have collected it during his visits to Natal in the 1930s. Male and female figurines like these appear to emulate the Tsonga practice of carving paired initiation figures, but because the tradition of male initiation was abandoned before the rise to power of the first Zulu king, Shaka, it is probable that these figurines were made for European buyers by Natal-based carvers who also made staffs for an indigenous African market. Like similar figurines and staffs by other carvers working in this tradition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the pair shown here is dressed in clothing similar to that worn by rural Zulu communities at that time. It is characteristic of this particular carver's work that his male figurines commonly carry small shields associated with festivities like weddings. To this day, Zulu traditionalists use dancing sticks to beat these small shields to the rhythm of wedding dances and songs.Sandra Klopper, March, 2004, StellenboschSotheby's, banditore, New York, US
🔓Senza carta di credito.
Titolo di vendita : African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian Art
Data della vendita : 14/05/2004
🔓Senza carta di credito.
Riferimento dell'asta : Live Sale
