A Superb Lega Standing Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo

René Withofs, Brussels
Sotheby's London, May 30, 1960, lot 125
Acquired at the above auction by Hanover Gallery, London
John Friede, New York
Ben Birillo, New York
Acquired from the above, 1970s

Art Traditionnel, Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles, Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi Section, Brussels, 1958

Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles (ed.), Art Traditionnel (Section du Congo Belge et du Ruanda-Urundi, Groupe 2/3: Les Arts et leurs moyens d’expression), 1958, cat. 356

Lega wood figures of the size of the Stanoff figure are extremely rare. Large figures mark the right of a particular bwami initiation community to hold specific initiation ceremonies. In order to enter a higher level of bwami, the community asks a higher level member of another community to visit and initiate a member of their own community into the secrets of the higher level. As a sign of this transfer, the new member of the higher level is given a large wood or ivory figure that has to be kept in trust for his own community. No initiations can take place without the presence of this figure, reminding everyone of the legitimacy of the ceremonies (Biebuyck 1986: 55; 1994: 38). Figures of this kind are not publicly displayed unless at initiations into the highest level of bwami (Biebuyck 1986: 96-97). The rest of the time, they are kept by the initiates as expressions of their group-related spirit, as major links with the deceased predecessors and as profound expressions of ultimate values and historical interdependencies. For this reason large figures were barely represented in collections for a long time (Biebuyck 2002: 119). For other examples of large anthropomorphic Lega figures see Cameron (2001: figs. 8.56 to 8.69).

Hanover Gallery, owned by Erica Brausen, was located in London’s West End, just off Hanover Square as the name suggests. The gallery specialised in postwar avant-garde art, selling works by artists such as Henry Moore, Marino Marini, Alberto Giacometti, and Francis Bacon. In 1959, the gallery put on an exhibition of African art, becoming one of the first contemporary art galleries in London to do so.