Lot n° 104
Estimation :
10000 - 12000
EUR
Fafore pirogue ornament - Lot 104
Fafore pirogue ornament
Wakde and Yamna Islands region, Humboldt Bay, West Papua
Carved and openworked wood, ochre and black pigments (one head previously restored)
Height: 25 cm
Provenance
G.H. Ralph von Koenigswald Collection, Germany
Kunsthandel Klefisch sale. Cologne. 12.5.2007 lot
Galerie Anthony Meyer, Paris
Once attached to the stern of a pirogue to protect it and its occupants, this polychrome, magical and symbolic ornament belongs to the fafore group, whose main characteristic is its wooden cross shape with carved ends. The complexity of the creation, the richness and finesse of its details are matched by its dimension, its highly symbolic value: "it is enough to recall the great number and importance of the rites surrounding the construction of a pirogue and all the ceremonies to which their inauguration gives rise to understand the value of the ornaments added to the boat and their participation both in the life of the native and in that of the clan to which the boat belongs". (Laroche Marie, " Ornements de pirogues de la Nouvelle-Guinée hollandaise " In: Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, IX° Série. Tome 4, 1943. pp.
85-103.)
The complex, skilful and ingenious structure of this ornament consists of a lower part with a round cross-section, designed to be attached to the boat by means of a single hole, flanked by two transverse branches, each carved with a human head in the round, linked by a vertical decorative element composed of alternating carved and hollowed-out triangles.
Marie Laroche, in her article on pirogue ornaments from Dutch New Guinea, classifies and lists fafore typologies, enabling us to stylistically relate this ornament to the category shown in figure 1.A, with a distinctive variation in the headdress, here in the form of a disc streaked with horizontal lines in relief. All four heads have the same features: oval shape, circular eyes, pointed, busted nose, triangular mouth. Another, more stylized double human representation can be observed, implicitly, discreetly suggested, it imposes itself on the decorated, openwork central part. The central geometrical motif, formed of lozenges and a cross, evokes the crouching position with knees apart of statues of Kowar ancestors from the same cultural area.
This reference to the Kowar is explicitly carved in high relief on the lower transverse branch.
Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald, (1902
-1982) German paleontologist and geologist, author of numerous studies on fossil hominids, particularly Homo erectus. He worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York before taking up a chair in paleontology created for him at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Following his retirement from the Utrecht chair, the Werner-Reimers Foundation awarded him a position in Germany, at the Natural History Museum of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt.
in Frankfurt. In the course of his life, he collected numerous objects from Oceania, such as this fine example, which retains its pigments and the strength of its protective symbolism.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue