Songye-Eki Figural Neckrest, Democratic Republic of the Congo

This rediscovered figural headrest is a sublime exemplar of Central African sculpture, long pre-dating abstract artistic concepts "discovered" in the West in the 20th century. It is a fusion of two great styles of Congolese sculpture: Luba and Songye. It takes the format of a luxurious and sacred status object, of a type which reached its apex in the pre-colonial Luba Kingdom. The body of the caryatid figure is formed with a surreal sculptural vocabulary that is distinctly Songye, however, both in morphology and in its sheer inventiveness. Large, flat, paddle-shaped feet are instantly recognizable as Songye, like those of their famous Power Figures (nkisi). The legs are short, fleshy, and charged, with a slight bend at the knee. Above the small suggestion of a rounded belly, the body becomes an abstract column, rising to support the lateral headrest in a pure geometric vertical without further description of figural features. At the back of the "neck" is a carefully formed aperture where a cord for carrying could be attached. The armless column therefore reads as the body of the figure, while the "head" is seemingly missing, or signified by the lateral "pillow". The sculptor may have intended an ingenious conceit connected to the function of the object: the sculpture becomes complete when the user rests their head upon it.

Sculptural headrests are used throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and in many other parts of the world as ceremonial objects with the functional purpose of supporting a person's head in repose. In many African traditions, the object takes the form of a lateral support resting atop the head of a standing figure (the female of which is known as a caryatid, the male as an atlantid, in ancient Greek and later Western art history). Beyond their functional purpose, these figural headrests carry rich artistic meaning and sacred significance: for their original owners, they could be objects of high status, regalia of royalty or other high-ranking individuals, and were often exquisitely-carved. In the canons of African Art, they are among the most highly prized objects and have iconic status, particularly in the classical art of the Congo River Basin. Artists such as the Master of the Cascading Coiffure, the Master of Mulango, and the Master of Buli created neckrests as tour-de-force showcases of their sculptural prowess.

The Luba used headrests during sleep for the practical purpose of preserving elaborate hair arrangements. According to François Neyt, “Among the Luba, as soon as night falls, the universe is peopled with spirits and beings who seem to fear the heat of the sun. These beings, good or evil, seem to take advantage of the nocturnal respite to communicate with humans. Dreams, therefore, are taken very seriously and often, for those who experience them, they are more real than the reality of everyday life. On some works, figures […] watch over the resting person to protect him during the mysterious hours of the night. The dreamer also participates in a [state] that one could compare to a hallucination, a trance state, or a state of consciousness modified by a hallucinogenic drug […] Recourse to a diviner priest is essential. The dreamer somehow participates in a second state in which man becomes receptive to a message from elsewhere.” ( François Neyt, Luba. Aux sources du fleuve Congo, Paris, 1993, p. 183).

While Luba examples are relatively numerous, figural Songye headrests are extremely rare. Two now-famous Songye headrests were among the earliest Songye artworks to be "discovered" by the outside world: one now on display in the Pavillon des Sessions at the Louvre (inv. no. 73.1986.1.3), and one sold in these rooms in 2013 (Sotheby's, Paris, June 18, 2013, lot 67) and again in 2021 (Sotheby's, Paris, November 30, 2021, lot 177). Both of these sculptures were collected by Captain F. Vandevelde before 1888, and published in 1892. At that time, the art of the Songye people was virtually unknown to the outside world with only a few works existing in German museums, which von Wissman had collected during his campaigns in the Eki and Northern Songye regions between 1881 and 1886 (François Neyt, Songye: The Formidable Statuary of Central Africa, Antwerp, 2004, p. 31). To 19th century observers, the appearance of these works sparked observations about the affinities between Sub-Saharan African culture and that of the Ancient Egyptians, where headrests were found in royal tombs, a connection which is still discussed today (see Diana Craig Patch and Alisa LaGamma, The African Origin of Civilization: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 79, no. 4, Spring, 2022, p. 34).

In the limited corpus of Songye neckrests, a well-known group are attributed to the Songye-Eki (or Beneki) style, as defined by François Neyt (Songye: The Formidable Statuary of Central Africa, Antwerp, 2004, pp. 308-312), and to a Nsapo-Nsapo master sculptor known as the Master of Eki (or Master of Beneki). Headrests by this artist or his workshops have been canonized by their accession to major museum collections in Europe and the United States throughout the 20th century: one is in the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden (inv. no. 41950); three are in the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren (one acquired by Joseph Maes in Lusambo and published by him in Les appuis-tête du Congo belge, Tervuren, 1929, pl. VII, fig. 11); one from the Wellcome Collection is now in the British Museum, London (inv. no. Af1954,+23.1758); one is at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles (see William J. Dewey, Sleeping Beauties: The Jerome L. Joss Collection of African Headrests at UCLA, Los Angeles, 1993, p. 65, cat. no. 57; reportedly from a “Belgian Colonial Collection”; another from the Joss Collection at the Fowler seems to be by the workshop or a follower); one is at The Stanley Museum of Art, Iowa City (see Robbins and Nooter African Art in American Collections, Survey, 1989, Washington, D.C., 1989, p. 468, fig. 1205); one is in the Dallas Museum of Art (inv. no. 1969.S.189); one is in the Minneapolis Institute of Art (inv. no. 99.139.6); one is in The Detroit Institute of Arts (inv. no. 1983.27); one is in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia (acquired from William O. Oldman of London, in 1912); and another is in the High Museum of Art, Atlanta (inv. no. 2002.309). Another of early provenance which relates to this corpus is in the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia; it was acquired by Albert C. Barnes from Paul Guillaume in 1922 (inv. no. A187, see Paul Guillaume and Thomas Munro, Primitive Negro Sculpture, London, 1926, p. 21, cat. no. 3a).

The large, flat feet carved in high relief on the present headrest relate closely to the corpus of the so-called Master of Eki. However, the visionary artist who created the present example departed from that fleshy, rounded figural style and created an abstract concept of which only one other example is known: a neckrest from the collection of the Belgian artist-collector Jean-Willy Mestach (see Evan Maurer, The Intelligence of Forms: An Artist Collects African Art, Minneapolis, 1991, p. 81, cat. no. 60). The Mestach example bears smaller feet and a less elaborate "pillow" as compared with the present work, and poker-work circles dot the top (as in several of the Master of Eki examples). The early collecting dates for many of the Master of Eki works corroborate the family history through which we trace the ownership of the present headrest, which was acquired in the Congo by the American mining engineer William Douglas McMillan, who arrived in the region sometime after 1914, returning to the United States by 1930; this extraordinary neckrest remained in the McMillan family until its recent rediscovery.