Vladimir Golschmann, St Louis and New York
John J. Klejman, New York, acquired from the above
Howard and Saretta Barnet, New York, acquired from the above on January 13, 1964

Good condition for an object of this type and age. Fragmentary as shown in catalogue illustration. The underside of the conical "neck" has been filled with cork and wax in modern times in order to stabilise following the removal of an eroded wood element. Brass has been cleaned, unevenly in places. Some loose elements. Lifting to panels on reverse, primarily on proper right side with an old loss, wood tinted underneath. Marks, nicks, scratches and abrasions consistent with age and use.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Among the objects of African art collected earliest by Europeans were reliquary figures from the Kele-speaking peoples of equatorial Atlantic Africa, who made their home in the eastern half of present-day Gabon and parts of the Republic of the Congo. Breathtaking in its abstraction of the human figure and dramatic in the materiality of its construction, this reliquary figure from the Mahongwe culture is an embodiment of the boldness of Mahongwe artistic inventiveness and a strikingly beautiful example of its corpus. Mahongwe reliquary figures have been historically distinguished for their radical degree of stylization and abstraction, even compared to other neighboring Kota substyles of artistic production. Whereas Kota reliquary guardian figures of other types possess a high degree of individuality, Mahongwe reliquary figures demonstrate a remarkable formal consistency. Anchored by a subtly concave wooden core, the ovoid-shaped “face” is symmetrical in composition, its "forehead" bisected by a wide vertical band of brass. On either side of this central band are "cheeks" comprising of dozens of meticulously hammered, thin strips of metal that trace the contours of the wood sculpture, evoking the form of elephant ears. Two circular metal appliques in the center of the face represent a pair of eyes, below which a sharp triangular protrusion acts as a stylized nose, surrounded on either side by sloping parallel ridges in relief that suggest, according to Perrois, "a long diagonal moustache, but [which] might be the stylized wrinkles of old age."¹ The contiguous horizontal metallic strips wrap around the figure and are attached by staples to the edges of a brass plate that covers a wide ridge running down the figure's central axis on the reverse. This ridge connects the tubular protrusion at the top of the head, representing the i-benda coiffure worn by dignitaries,² with the cylindrical abstraction of the neck and body below the face, which would have been attached to a basket containing ancestral relics.

Known as boho-na-bwete—literally "faces of the bwete ancestors"—these reliquary figures were not intended to realistically depict any one particular ancestor. Instead, they functioned as altar figures to which villagers and descendants of the venerated forebearers appealed for assistance and protection in earthly affairs. As such, they were vessels of spiritual connection between the realm of the ancestors with that of the living. The two earliest Mahongwe figures are in the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin (inv. no. III C 1088), collected in 1874 by German geologist Oskar Lenz, and the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris (inv. no. MH 86.77.2), brought to France by Joseph Michaud and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza during one of their exploratory trips to the region in 1880. During the 1930-1940s, large numbers of Mahongwe reliquary figures were destroyed by Catholic missionaries, who considered ancestor cults a form of witchcraft. In part due to the small size of the Mahongwe population and these unfortunate acts of destruction in the twentieth century, the corpus of Mahongwe reliquary figures is small compared to other Kota substyles.

The present figure once belonged to Vladimir Golschmann, a Paris-born conductor who served as the musical director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra for 27 years starting in 1931. Golschmann and his wife possessed a distinguished modern art collection, displayed alongside a number of African sculptures. While we do not know how this reliquary figure entered their collection, the sculpture’s majesty and enigma must have piqued the Golschmanns’ modernist taste, its appeal enhanced by the spiritual power it once held for the Mahongwe.


¹ Perrois, Kota, Milan, 2012, p. 54
² Ibid.