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Important Janus Mbulu-Viti reliquary figure, GABON, KOTA
See original version (French)
69
-
Important Janus Mbulu-Viti reliquary figure, GABON, KOTA
See original version (French)
Estimate €25,000 - €35,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Important Janus Mbulu-Viti reliquary figure, GABON, KOTA
Southern Kota, Obamba, Mindumu or Wumbu, from the Semangoy area of Zokolunga
Franceville / Moanda region, Haut-Ogooué, Gabon
Late 19th or early 20th century
Wood, brass, copper and iron. Later wooden plinth.
H. 53.5 cm (excluding plinth)
Provenance:
Collected between 1913 and 1920 by a French civil servant.
Lempertz, Brussels, 26 April 2008, lot 196.
Belgian private collection.
History of attribution:
At the 2008 Lempertz auction, Frédéric Cloth dated the work to the early 20th century and situated it most likely in southern Gabon, in the Moanda region. He considered it to be influenced by older workshops, such as that of Semangoy. He listed seven known reliquaries by the same artist or from the same workshop, most of which were semi-convex in form, this one being the only one of the Janus type, and noted the almost identical example in the Musée de l’Homme mentioned above.
Note:
Janus figures, known as ‘mbulu-viti’ amongst the Southern Kota, account for less than 1 per cent of the Kota corpus (Perrois, 2012); amongst the Obamba of Upper Ogooué, only around ten ancient examples are known. According to Efraïm Andersson’s fieldwork in the 1930s, they were both older and of greater social significance than single-faced figures (Contribution à l’ethnographie des Kuta, 1953, p. 342); the large examples are said to have preserved the relics of an entire lineage. Andersson’s informants, and later those of Perrois, identified the convex face with a rounded forehead as male and the concave face as female, the two faces expressing the primordial duality of man and woman. Andersson finally noted that the frontal headband worn by these figures was a mark of the chiefs’ dignity (1974).
An effigy of an ancestor with two opposing faces, supported by a cylindrical neck encased in metal and an openwork diamond-shaped body left exposed, with a dark brown, glossy patina. The main, convex face features an oval brass face with a strongly domed forehead, emphasised by a riveted red copper headband running across the eyes from one temple to the other.
The features are modelled using repoussé: almond-shaped eyes with iron pupils, a triangular nose, and a mouth in the shape of a slender crescent. The enveloping side headdresses extend into cylindrical pendants and are surmounted by a large crescent-shaped crest, adorned in the centre with a hatched triangular motif.
The reverse, more schematic and virtually flat, is covered with dark metal plates nailed in place; it features eyes in relief and a nose shaped like a folded leaf, with no mouth. This contrast between a strongly modelled convex side and a more abstract reverse is characteristic of Janus figures from the southern part of the Kota region.
With its oval face, overhanging forehead, the headband crossing the eyes, the broad transverse crescent and its side headdresses with pendants, this figure is associated with the Moanda sub-style, the centre of which—as established by Dr Andrault’s research in the early 1960s, published by Louis Perrois—was the village of Zokolunga, where the Wumbu sculptors Semangoy and Koba were active in the 19th century. The body of work associated with this workshop remains very limited: the Janus from the Dallas Museum of Art (inv. 2005.36McD), those in the Vérité collection (Enchères Rive Gauche, Paris, 2006, no. 214) and the Barbier-Mueller collection (Perrois, 1985, no. 11), the figure from the Fourquet collection (Sotheby’s, Paris, 6 December 2005), as well as two Janus figures sold at Christie’s, Paris, 10 April 2018, lot 51, and at Binoche and Giquello, Paris, 6 November 2020, lot 43.
A specimen almost identical to ours, of the same height and composition (convex face encircled by a riveted headband, crest with a hatched triangular motif, cylindrical pendants), is held at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (inv. 71.1949.20.4, formerly in the collection of the Musée de l’Homme, donated by Mlle Arsandaux, 1949).
Condition:
Good overall condition, showing signs of wear. Cracks and small areas of loss on the crest; a few missing rivets on the frontal band; localised lifting of the metal sheets on the side headdresses; the nose on the reverse is split. An old crack in the tenon and a chip at the base of the diamond. The metal surfaces have probably been cleaned in the past.
References:
E. Andersson, Contribution to the Ethnography of the Kuta, I, Uppsala, 1953; II, 1974.
L. Perrois, Ancestral Art of Gabon in the Collections of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva, 1985.
L. Perrois, Kota, Milan, 5 Continents, 2012.
R. A. Walker, The Arts of Africa at the Dallas Museum of Art, 2009, cat. 69
We would like to thank Mr Jan-Joris Visser for the information regarding the history of this sculpture.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale
DE SPILLIAERT AND DE SMET IN GABON, VIA CHINA Khnopff, Mortier, Picasso • Old Master paintings • Chinese bronzes and porcelain • Kota reliquary • Jewellery • Antique weapons
Auction location
Auction time
10/18/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits:
Hugo Sanchez
See original version (French)
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