Online catalogue for the 52nd tribal art auction

21 Club

This object is not available any more.

New Caledonia, Kanak

wood, shiny brown patina, slightly bent handle, upper part in form of a stylized bird´s head with a big beak, min. dam., fissures, small missing parts, on base

H: 79 cm
H: 31.1 inch

Provenance
Serge Schoffel, Paris, France

Literature
Kaeppler, Adrienne, Christian Kaufmann und Douglas Newton, Ozeanien, Kunst und Kultur, Herder Verlag Freiburg, Basel, Wien 1994, p. 305, ill. 13

Price: 600 - 900 €

22 Club

This object is not available any more.

New Caledonia, Kanak

hardwood, reddish brown shining patina, circular shaft, getting broader to the top, fungal-like tip with sharp-edged rim, the handle zone coated with cotton fabric, fixed by plaited cord, dotted ornaments at the upper rim, accentuated by kaolin, cracks, minor missing parts at the rim, on metal base; diminutive form, presumably made for children.

L: 62,5 cm
L: 24.6 inch

Provenance
Private Collection, France

Literature
Newton, Douglas (Hg.), Arts of the South Seas, The Collection of the Musée Barbier-Mueller, München, London, New York 1999, p. 305, ill. 13

Price: 1300 - 2000 €

23 Club

This object is not available any more.

New Caledonia, Kanak

wood, shiny brown patina, slightly bent handle, club-head in the shape of a birds head with a huge beak and a bonnet at the nape, min. dam., fissures, small missing parts; appeared during large-scale ceremonies.

L: 54 cm
L: 21.3 inch

Provenance
Stephane Grusenmeyer, Brussels, Belgium

Literature
Douglas Newton, (Hrsg.): Art of the South Seas, The Collection of the Musée Barbier-Mueller, München, London, New York 1999, p. 305, ill. 13

Price: 1100 - 1700 €

24 Club

This object is not available any more.

Vanuatu, Efate Island

wood, beautiful reddish brown shining patina, traces of black paint, circular shaft, getting broader to the handle area, clubs head consisting of a disc-shaped ring and a massive fungal-shaped head, slightly dam., cracks, minor missing parts at the base

L: 96 cm
L: 37.8 inch

Literature
Felix Speiser, Ethnography of Vanuatu, 1923, pl. 57

Price: 1550 - 2300 €

25 Ceremonial paddle

This object is not available any more.

Austral Islands

wood, reddish brown patina, a square shaft with two staff-like endings, arising from a figurally carved rectangular intermediate piece, a wide, slightly vaulted leaflike paddle at the base, the whole object coated with elaborate ornaments in flat relief, arranged in stripes, showing concentric circles and diamond-shaped patterns, slightly dam., on metal base; coming from a chief's canoe. Paddles of this highly decorated kind were perhaps the most collected objects in the Pacific in the first half of the nineteenth century. Well over one thousand exist in collections, and research has shown that they were made during a dynamic period of activity by Ra'ivavae carvers around 1820 -1840.

L: 230 cm, around 1820 -40
L: 90.6 inch, around 1820 -40

Provenance
English Collection

Literature
Hooper, Steven, Pacific Encounters, Art Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860, Norwich 2006, p. 216, ill. 184

Price: 12000 - 18000 €

26 Kava bowl

This object is not available any more.

Fidji Islands

wood, dark brown patina, of circular form, supported by four short feet, plant fibre handle affixed, min. dam., fissures, signs of abrasion; used in special ceremonies, when "yaqona" (kava) was presented to an ancestor spirit who took possession of a priests body, in order to speak with the descendants through him.

D: 44,5 cm; H: 17 cm
D: 17.5 inch; H: 6.7 inch

Provenance
French Collection

Literature
Douglas Newton, (Hrsg.): Art of the South Seas, The Collection of the Musée Barbier-Mueller, München, London, New York 1999, p. 323, ill. 15

Price: 700 - 1000 €

27 Club

This object is not available any more.

Fidji Islands

wood, reddish brown patina, massive war club made from the rootball and trunk of a young ironwood sapling, lower part decorated with ornaments, dam., cracks

L: 107 cm
L: 42.1 inch

Provenance
Private Collection, France

Literature
A. Wardwell, Island Ancestors, University of Washington Press 1994, p. 166, ill. 67 b

Price: 1200 - 1800 €

28 Standing male ancestor figure "moai tangata"

This object is not available any more.

Easter Island

wood ("sophora toromiro"), slightly shining, reddish brown patina, obsidian, with thin legs rising from small feet, supporting a slender trunk with narrow shoulders and bony hips, flanked by long arms with both hands resting aside the upper legs, a strong neck carrying a relatively big head which is slightly turned to the right, the face is dominated by striking eyes consisting of shell discs with obsidian inlay, the raised brows and nose ridge forming a T-shaped zone, the head flattened on top, the wrists carved with bulges, slightly dam., cracks (left half of the face, back), on base; the "moai tangata" ("tangata" = polynesian word for human being) represents a real ancestor. Besides the "moai tangata" there is the "moai kavakava", the representation of the spiritual ancestor. This type of figure is determined by a skeleton-like structure of the body. The "moai papa" is representing the earth mother. The "toromiro" tree which supplied the wood for sacred carvings is now extinct.

H: 43,5 cm, about 1850
H: 17.1 inch, about 1850

Provenance
Private Collection, France

Literature
1500 Jahre Kultur der Osterinsel, Schätze aus dem Land des Hotu Matua, Mainz 1989, p. 191 ff.
Hooper, Steven, Pacific Encounters, Art Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860, Norwich 2006, p. 145, ill. 91
Peter, Hanns, Polynesier, Vikinger der Südsee, Ausst.kat. Museum für Völkerkunde, Wien o.J., p. 166
Meyer, Anthony J.P., Ozeanische Kunst, Vol. II, Köln 1995, p. 584, ill. 674
Newton, Douglas (Hg.), Arts of the South Seas, The Collection of the Musée Barbier-Mueller, München, London, New York 1999, p. 342 ff.

Sold.

29 War club

This object is not available any more.

Tonga

heavy wood, reddish brown shining patina, a circular handle zone, merging into a rhomboid cross-section, while getting broader to the top, decorated with incised diamond-shaped ornaments, pierced at the base, slightly dam., minor missing parts at the rim, on metal base

H: 59,5 cm
H: 23.4 inch

Literature
Newton, Douglas (Hg.), Arts of the South Seas, The Collection of the Musée Barbier-Mueller, München, London, New York 1999, p. 310, ill. 9

Sold.

30 Club

This object is not available any more.

Tonga

wood, reddish brown patina, of slightly bent form, circular in cross-section, extended to the roughened saddle-shaped top, lower part decorated with notched ornaments, min. dam., fissures and signs of abrasion

H: 99,5 cm
H: 39.2 inch

Literature
A. J. P. Meyer, Ozeanische Kunst, Vol. II, Köln 1995, p. 483

Price: 1200 - 1800 €