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bronze sculpture of a woman ' s face on a wooden basean image of a wooden sculpture of a bird on a standan image of a bronze statue of a bird on a wooden base
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252 - 5 - Reliquary figure
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Estimate €4,000 - €6,000
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Description
Reliquary figure Kota, Gabon, on a plinth 71 x 38.5 cm (excluding plinth) 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 recognisable 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 in graphic geometric forms, following a flattened and essentially two-dimensional design. It rises vertically on a cylindrical neck carved from a single block, above an openwork diamond-shaped base. The front of the sculpture is covered with an assemblage of metal plates and strips, often of different colours and adorned with geometric motifs created using repoussé or chiselling techniques. No two of these figures are exactly alike. All these elements are found in this Kota figure, which is also characterised 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 nineteenth-century Gabon — were kept shiny through repeated polishing with sand. Their lustre 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 finest 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 amongst 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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About the sale Selected works from the 20th century
Auction location
Auction time 10/26/2026 at 2:00 PM
Ref. : 8769 - 198
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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