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This is the rating and price for A Rare Central African, Zela, Seated Female Figure



Description : the seated figure of exaggerated proportions, with outstretched diminutive legs beneath the elongated, broad torso, the arms supporting a hollowed vessel, the subtly rendered clavicle beneath the slender neck and large head with a mask-like face, slit mouth, triangular nose and rimmed almond-shaped eyes, and wearing a broadly-striated coiffure, the torso and face decorated with raised and incised linear and geometric scarification, varied blackened to reddish brown patina.
Price: 39 000.00 USD It's free to register now to view!
Estimate (low-high) : 18000 USD-22000 USD It's free to register now to view!

About the lot N° 69
Title : A Rare Central African, Zela, Seated Female Figure
Size : height 22in. 56cm
Literature : Felix 1987: 205, figure 205
Notes : Closely related to the Luba, the Zela share some of their artistic forms such as this bowl-bearer. According to Roberts, 'bowl figures are owned by both chiefs and diviners to honor and remember the critical role played by the first mythical diviner... Rulers keep them at their doors filled with a sacred white chalk associated with purity, renewal and the spirit world. Usually, however, these figures are the prerogative of royal diviners...who use them as oracles, and as receptacles for their possessing spirit's wife.' The female figures who hold the bowls bear the marks of civilization such as scarifications and elegant coiffures (Roberts and Roberts 1996: 70). See (ibid.: catalogue number 22 and passim) for related Luba bowl-bearers.
Sotheby's, auctioneer, New York, US It's free to register now to view!
Sale title : African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian Art
Sale date : 14 May 2004 It's free to register now to view!
Sale Reference : Live Sale

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