Reliquary Figure - Lot 252

Lot n° 252.5
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Estimation :
4000 - 6000 EUR
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Reliquary Figure - Lot 252
Reliquary Figure Kota, Gabon, on a pedestal 71 x 38.5 cm (excluding pedestal) Provenance: Formerly in the Daniel Cordier Collection, then passed down through the family. Kota reliquary figures have become true icons of world art and are now instantly recognizable to Western audiences. The fundamental elements of this tradition are particularly distinctive and have no equivalent elsewhere in Africa. Carved from wood, the human head is rendered using graphic geometric forms, in a flattened and essentially two-dimensional style. It rises vertically on a cylindrical neck carved from a single block, above a diamond-shaped openwork base. The front of the sculpture is covered with an assemblage of metal plates and strips, often of different colors and adorned with geometric motifs created using repoussé or chiseled techniques. No two of these figures are exactly alike. All these elements are found in this Kota figure, which is also characterized by a crescent-shaped headdress. The iconography of Kota figures evokes the faces and, in some cases, the skulls of the deceased whose relics they protected. The copper and brass surfaces—materials as precious as gold in 19th-century Gabon—were kept shiny through repeated sand polishing. Their luster evoked the shimmering surface of water, beyond or beneath which lay the world of the dead. For their creators, these sculptures thus constituted a mystical link between the world of the living and that of the dead. The most accomplished examples of this artistic tradition reveal sculptors whose formal inventiveness, mastery of materials, and virtuosity enabled them to imbue these works with genuine spiritual power, placing them among the world’s great sacred sculptures. Within this iconic corpus of African art, these two reliquaries from the former Daniel Cordier Collection stand out for their stylistic qualities. Please contact the auction house for condition reports.
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