This is the rating and price for Chamba Ancestral Couple, Middle Benue River Valley, Nigeria, 2004
Description : CHAMBA ANCESTRAL COUPLE,
MIDDLE BENUE RIVER VALLEY, NIGERIA
heights 19 3/4 and 20in (50.2cm and 50.9cm)
Provenance:
Private Collection, New York
‘Across the vastness and complexity of
sub-Saharan Africa, and over the centuries,
representations of couples,’ notes Alisa
LaGamma, ‘have evoked a fundamental
desire of the human condition--a yearning
of the individual to transcend isolation and
connect with an “other.” Figurative pairs
created by artists from the extreme reaches
of the continent, ranging from the Dogon
of Mali to the Sakalava of Madagascar,
constitute artistic explorations into this
realm of duality, that aesthetic quest at once
engenders original and distinctive creations
and commentaries that touch on a universally
accessible theme. While these figures grow
out of a mythos present in many cultures
around the world, images of idealized
figurative pairs often express underlying
social and philosophical ideas concerning
duality that are culturally specific.
The term “couple” suggests the presence
of a bond that joins two elements together.
Although Western social conventions have
conceived of such pairing as comprising a
man and a woman, the term also can be
applied to two persons or forces paired
together. Both a quintessential human desire
to seek out unions with other human beings
and the duality of the human condition have
been the source of philosophical speculation
since antiquity.’ (Echoing Images - Couples in
African Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, 2004, p. 9)
Each of finely carved hard wood with
powerful and strongly abstract features
often seen in Chamba sculpture, including
undulating limbs, shoulders hunched forward
and legs apart, each figure with rounded
heads bordered by large circular ears and
topped by a sagittal crest, each narrow face
with circular, trance-like eyes above pursed
lips accented with linear scarification on each
cheek, the female carved with diminutive
breasts at the mid-section of the torso, each
of encrusted, reddish-brown patina.
Price: 0.00 USDIt's free to register now to view!
Estimate (low-high) : 18000 USD-22000 USDIt's free to register now to view!
About the lot N° 89 Title : Chamba Ancestral Couple, Middle Benue River Valley, Nigeria, Period : 2004 Size : 19 3/4 and 20in (50.2cm and 50.9cm) Bonhams 2, auctioneer, New York, USIt's free to register now to view! Sale title : African and Oceanic Art Sale date : 13 Nov 2018It's free to register now to view! Sale Reference : Live Sale
