Lot n° 13
Estimation :
15000 - 30000
EUR
Hogon Dogon Mali bowl cover - Lot 13
Hogon Dogon Mali bowl cover
Dimensions: 54.5 x 23 x 25 cm
Provenance: Private collection, France
Private collection, France
Christine Valluet Collection, France
Galerie Schoffel de Fabry, France
This ceremonial bowl lid from the northwestern
northwest of the Bandiagara Plateau, in the region centered on Fombori and the Douenza, belongs to a rare and restricted corpus of cups surmounted by an equestrian figure, commonly referred to as the
Hogon bowl.
The Hogon, an eminent religious leader and a figure invested with power and authority, was rare. Intended to contain the food shared during his investiture and major ceremonies. This sacred object, of which only twenty or so exist, is intimately linked to the person of the Hogon or ôgô, the man who, in the eyes of his community, became the high priest of the Lêwe (or Lèbè), spiritual sovereign and "living ancestor" designated by his fellow men by virtue of his birthright.
All that remains of this cup is the finely engraved lid, with symbolic chevron motifs relating to water, the source of the earth's fertility. "Serving agrarian cults, its nature is that of the Earth, feminine when it is fertile, masculine when, during the long weeks preceding the wintering season, it is nothing but aridity".
The animated top features a tall man on horseback, his arm brandishing a vanished spear. The Djennenké, who immigrated to the Bandiagara plateau around 1475, were undoubtedly responsible for the adoption of the Moorish horse, the only horse to have acclimatized to the harsh environment of the Sudanese savannah and, above all, to have resisted trypanosomiasis. A mode of transport favoured by the
Dogon, who inspired the cliff sculptors who engraved its image in all kinds of materials, at different times, in a wide variety of styles and on a wide variety of supports.
The animal embodies the Nommo, son of God, sacrificed and resurrected, brought down to earth in an ark (Paudrat, J.-L., Dogon, Paris, 1994, p. 72) (aduno koro) in the company of the eight primordial ancestors of mankind. He is often depicted with his rider, the Hogon, "natural high priest of the ancestral spirits [...] in the past, his power was absolute as a great political, judicial and religious leader." (Desplagnes, L., Le Plateau Central Nigérien, Paris, 1907, p. 314).
There has since been a broad consensus that this Hogon is the horseman depicted on the lid of the bowl studied here, and its exclusive user, particularly during ceremonies involving the sharing of food.
The image of the horseman is associated with the power of the
Hogon and his powers. The work's great classicism is matched by the singular detail of the rider raising his left arm, and the dark, oily patina that bears witness to its archaism. Numerous native repairs, notably to the back of the animal's tail, reveal the desire to preserve this sacred cup from the ravages of time, in order to pass it on to descendants.
This type of bowl is not unique, but Tristan Tzara and Michel Périnet
Tzara and Michel Périnet collected them. The richness of its decoration, where chevrons blend with water lines and other traditional motifs, the perfect balance of the composition and the precision of the line are sublimated by a deep, shiny, velvety patina 1Complete legend: "Container carried by a quadruped and closed by a lid carved from the same piece of wood as the mount and rider that decorate it" in Level, A. and Clouzot, H., Sculptures africaines et océaniennes. Colonies françaises et Congo belge, Paris, 1923, p. 21, pl. XIX
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