Tag: Luba

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Auctions Collectors Objects

A Luba mboko from the Colin Sayers collection of African art

A Luba Shankadi mboko figure. Ca. 1930. Height: 59 cm.
A Luba Shankadi mboko figure. Ca. 1930. Height: 59 cm.

Earlier this month the Colin Sayers collection of African art was auctioned by Stephan Welz & Co. in Cape Town. You can read a tribute to the man here. The above Luba bowl bearer was the top lot of the sale and sold for € 18,000 (including premium). Most likely it was carved by by Kitwa Biseke, official carver to the Nkulu chieftainship (Mwanzi region). Many mboko from this workshop are known, but this one was a new addition to the corpus. More info can be found in an article by A. Nettleton: Burton’s Luba Mboko: Reflections of Reality, The Collection of WFP Burton (University of the Witwatersrand Art Galleries, Johannesburg, 1992, pp 51-67).

Below another mboko from this workshop published in African Fetishes and Ancestral Objects, together with a field-photo of the carver in action by Burton – click on the picture to zoom.

African fetisches and ancestral objects 5

 

Categories
Fairs Publications

Packaging of the day: Claes – TEFAF 2014

Claes Tefaf 2014 a

“It’s not what you say, but how you say it” has always been a popular marketing phrase. One dealer who’s very aware of this, is the Brussels based Didier Claes. Today, I received the catalogue for his exhibition at TEFAF. It was packaged in a very fancy black bubble wrap envelope. Once again, Claes is raising the bar for his fellow dealers. Participating as a full member of Tefaf for the first time*, a statement had to be made of course. Inserted in a luxurious slipcase, the catalogue presents 24 carefully selected objects – my favourite being the superb Luba caryatid stool illustrated below. Talking about Tefaf-quality! The book features texts by Agnès Lacaille, Marc L. Felix, François Neyt, Manuel Jordan, Louis Perrois and yours truly.

*In 2008, he had already participated as part of Tefaf’s showcase program.

UPDATE: you can download the French edition of the catalogue here.

Claes Tefaf 2014 b

Claes Tefaf 2014 c

Categories
Auctions News Objects

Sleeper of last weekend: a zoomorphic Luba headrest

Image courtesy of Artcurial.
Image courtesy of Artcurial.

Last Saturday, 14 December 2013, Artcurial Lyon, auctioned the collection of the anonymous Mr. C. You can download the catalogue here. Though mostly utilitarian objects, the sale contained some interesting items. The sleeper of the sale, the above Luba antelope headrest (info), estimated € 2K-3K, sold for € 26K (without costs). An old inscription mentioned it was collected in 1914. Compare it with a similar neckrest, illustrated below, from the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin (#III.E.12755), collected in 1907 (height: 14,8 cm).

Again, this result illustrates, that no masterpieces in small auctions stay overlooked these days. Be it in Liège, Belgium; Lyon, France or a small provincial sale in the UK, the time of being the only knowledgable person at such a sale is definitely over. Secondly, since there were not many other suprises in the sale, it shows also how highly selective the market is these days. In this economy, everybody is watching his or her cash more carefully than ever and only the safe bets still generate interest.

Image courtesy of SMPK, Berlin.
Image courtesy of SMPK, Berlin.
Categories
News Publications

African Fetishes and Ancestral Objects (Five Continents, 2014)

African fetisches and ancestral objects 1

Published by Five Continents, African Fetishes and Ancestral Objects is an upcoming publication about a Brussels-based private collection. It features ca. 70 objects from four African style groups: the Kongo, Teke, Luba and Songye. Each object is described meticulously by François Neyt and illustrated with multiple beautiful pictures taken by Hughes Dubois. I was happy to contribute numerous related field-photos and drawings. Among others, I found an old drawing from 1888 featuring a Bwende man with the same hairstyle and scarifications as a pictured figure; as well as a field-photo by Burton showing one of the carvers of the Mwanza workshop (see below). The majority of the shown figures have never been published before and this book definitely puts them on the map. It’s very praiseworthy that the anonymous collector succeeded in bringing them together at this point in time; the close guidance by Didier Claes may have played an important role in the rediscovery of so many important objects.

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African fetisches and ancestral objects 3

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