A Fine Fang Reliquary Guardian Figure, Gabon

Harvey Menist, Amsterdam
Arthur Rothenberg, Massachusetts
Acquired from the above, 1980s

This remarkably sensitive and elegant reliquary guardian figure stylistically can be placed as originating from a Southern Fang workshop in Northern Gabon. Compare the angular legs, the squared shoulders, the wide pointed mouth, the bulbous eyes and the single crested backswept coiffure with a figure in the collection of the Museum für Völkerkunde, Basel (no. III 11.439; published in Perrois 1992: 77). The original patina, still oozing oil, is patricularly remarkable for a sculpture with early collection history. The Inagaki base suggests the figure must have been in Paris in the 1930s when the famous basemaker was creating mounts.