The Scholar's Feast: The Rosman Rubel Collection
The Scholar's Feast: The Rosman Rubel Collection
Lot Closed
April 8, 04:14 PM GMT
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Throwing Club
Tonga
kolo
Length: 19 in (48.2 cm)
Here six shield-like bosses or masks emerge in high relief from a head that is almost spherical. Below each face or boss, a fine rib runs down to the raised collar. The bosses bear an immediate and unmistakable resemblance to the faces of the great Goddess sculptures created in the islands of the Ha‘apai group.
Two very similar clubs from the collection of W. O. Oldman, the great English dealer and collector, are in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington (reg. nos. OL000518/1 and OL000518/2; the former on loan to the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira. Both illustrated in Oldman, The Oldman Collection of Polynesian Artifacts, Auckland, 2004, pl. 51, cat. nos. 518a, and 518b). Like the present lot, the second Oldman club has a lug which he describes as being “like those on Samoan clubs […]” (ibid., p. 32).