Lefem society emblem, Ateu Atsa workshop,... - Lot 86 - Giquello

Lot 86
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Estimation :
20000 - 30000 EUR
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Result : 20 800EUR
Lefem society emblem, Ateu Atsa workshop,... - Lot 86 - Giquello
Lefem society emblem, Ateu Atsa workshop, Western Bangwa, Cameroon Wood H. 121 cm Lefem society emblem, Ateu Atsa workshop, Western Bangwa, Cameroon H. 47 5/8 in Provenance: - Acquired in situ by Gustav Conrau (1865-1899) ca. 1898-1899 - Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, acquired in 1899 (inv. No. III C 10544) - Arthur Speyer II (1894-1958), Berlin, ca. 1920 - Possibly Charles Ratton, Paris, ca. late 1920 - The Potter Museum, Bramber, Brighton, then Arundel - Bonham's, London, The sale of the Contents of Mr Potter's Museum of Curiosities, 24 September 2003, lot 489 - Kevin Conru, Brussels - Sotheby's, Paris, 10 December 2014, lot 68 - Private collection Publications: - Marie-Thérèse Brincard, Christaud M. Geary, "Art in Cameroon: Sculptural Dialogues", Constellations, Studies in African Art, vol. 2, p. 11, fig. 6 (drawing by Gustav Conrau dated 1899) - Bettina Von Lintig, "From Fontem to Berlin. The long journey of a lefem bangwa stick", Tribal Art Magazine, No. 76, Summer 2015, p.1 31, fig.2 and p. 135, fig.13-15 - Bettina Von Lintig, "Das Hinterland der Küste...", Kunst & Kontext. Aussereuropäische Kunst & Kultur im Dialog, no.11, July 2016, pp.32-33, fig.2a and 2b - Bettina Von Lintig, "La collection bangwa formée par Gustav Conrau", Tribal Art Magazine, no.86, Winter 2017, p.111, fig 35 Exhibition: - Brumber/Brighton/Arundel, The Potter Museum (ca. 1930-2003) This sculpture depicts an anthropomorphic figure perched on top of a long, cylindrical pole. His expressive face shows a ferocious set of teeth. He holds a human head in his hands. The archaic style of this work and its patina attest to its great antiquity. Gustav Conrau was the first European to visit the mountainous region of Bangwa territory between 1898 and 1899, when he was commissioned to acquire pieces for the Königlches Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin. During his stay, he acquired an extraordinary group of sculptures, some of which are now considered masterpieces of African art, including the famous Bangwa Queen (kept at the Dapper Museum), her male counterpart donated to the Musée du Quai Branly by Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière (inv.70.2017.66.3), the important commemorative statue now in the Berlin Museum (inv. III C 10521), and the emblem of the Lefem company presented here. The detailed history of this work can be found in historian Bettina von Lintig's comprehensive article on it (Von Lintig, 2015). In 1899, Conrau sent Felix von Luschan an account of his expedition to Bangwa territory, accompanied by sketches of the works he had recently acquired. In the centre of these sheets, the representation of the Lefem emblem holding a human head in its hands is clearly visible. Bettina von Lintig underlines the relationship of this major work with the workshop of Ateu Atsa: "In 1990, Pierre Harter, relying in particular on two statues collected by Conrau, identified [...] the hand of one of the most remarkable Bangwa artists of the 19th century: Ateu Atsa. This stick, sculpted with a figure of a king (or Fon) holding a mask, is firmly attached by its style, iconography and "faceted" surface to the corpus of works attributed by Harter to the hand of Ateu Atsa, now understood more generally as the workshop of Ateu Atsa. Placed under the guardianship of the Lefem, or "gong society", it was associated, like all Lefem statuary, with the cult of the royal ancestors. During ceremonies, these sticks were placed at the entrance to the path leading to the sacred wood, thus prohibiting its access during meetings" (in Sotheby's, 2014).
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