Ritual figure
Unterer Sepik, Papua-Neuguinea
wood, blackened, ornamental painted with red ochre and kaolin, standing, high towering figure with stylized forms, showing elongated, tube like limbs, long legs with the knees bent inwards supporting a «trunkless» upper part of the body, consisting of angled arms with the hands clasped together in front of the body, crowned by a stylized head with bulging forehead and deepened eye zone, the forehead ridge merging into a beak-like flattened lower part of the face, in full length supporting a snake-like being with diamond-shaped middle part in front of the body, slightly dam., crack (forehead), missing part (left ear), minor missing parts (forehead ridge), on base; such figures appeared on masquerades within the Angoram area of Lower Sepik, they were affixed to bamboo sticks.
H: 86,5 cm

Provenance:
Linden-Museum Stuttgart, Germany, beschriftet «L.1/1 Neu Guinea» (zweifach, als Sammlungsetikett und mit weißer Farbe); Missionsmuseum St. Augustin, Bonn, Germany, Inventarnummer «91/2»

Lit.: Kelm, Heinz, Kunst vom Sepik, Band III, Berlin 1968, p. 10 - 12, fig. 58 - 65
Greub, Suzanne, Ausdruck und Ornament, Kunst am Sepik, Tribal Art Centre, Basel 1985, p. 154