À propos du lot
n° 55
Titre : TETE DE RELIQUAIRE FANG, BETSI, EYEMA-BYERI ou ANGOKH-NLO-BYERI A FANG, BETSI, RELIQUARY GUARDIAN HEAD , EYEMA-BYERI OR ANGOKH-NLO-BYERI
Provenance : Charles Ratton, Paris avant 1935
Celeste et Armand Bartos, New York, avant 1962Literature : Archives de la Pierre Matisse Gallery, MA 5020: Box 123, planches 1 et
3. Département de Littérature et de manuscrits historiques, The Morgan
Library & Museum. New York, New York.
Archives photographiques du Dr. Gaston Durville, Paris, vers 1930
Sweeney, J.J., African Negro Art, New York, 1935, fig.376 (listée)
La tête figure sur la photographie de Soichi Sunami montrant
l'accumulation des oeuvres avant leur installation au MoMANotes : The reappearance of this masterpiece of Fang sculpture, lost to public
knowledge since the 1930s, is an important event. Thanks to several
clues, including early photographs, we were able to trace the pedigree
of this object.
It appeared for the first time in 1935, while in possession of Charles
Ratton, at the moment of the key exhibition African Negro Art (March 18
- May 19, 1935) held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Listed in
the catalog under number 376, it is pictured on the famous Soichi Sunami
photograph showing the accumulation of objects prior their installation
in the museum (backwards at the center: in front of the Senufo figure
left foot). This exhibition is a turning point in African art
appreciation, no longer perceived as ethnography, but as works of art.
Charles Ratton played an important role in this exhibition, as he was
the central figure responsible for the selection of objects coming from
Europe. With the support of Alfred Barr, director of the museum, he
worked in collaboration with American specialists, such as James Johnson
Sweeney and Robert Goldwater.
Many objects were lent by European institutions and private collection,
such as Felix Fnon, Frank Burty Haviland, Louis Carr, Tristan Tzara and
Helena Rubinstein, who were friends of Ratton, including part of his own
collection Ratton. All of the most elite African art collectors wished
to participate to this event. Charles Ratton lent himself several
important artworks including the Bartos Fang head. An exhibition at the
Muse du Quai Branly (Charles Ratton, l'invention des Arts "Primitifs",
June 25-September 22, 2013) will soon enhance the eye of Charles Ratton,
the most important dealer of African art in the 20th century, who was
one of the first to understand so-called 'primitive' art, to appreciate
it for its artistic and not ethnographic aspects and finally to promote
it among both collectors and museums.
The Bartos Fang head also appears in a photograph dating from the same
year and taken during the African Art from the Ratton Collection
exhibition (March 30-April 20, 1935) held at the avant-garde Pierre
Matisse Gallery(PMG archives op. cit., 123.1) - the first major
crossroads in America where modernist paintings encountered 'primitive'
art. Matisse, who at the time, was supporting artists such as de
Chirico, Derain, Picasso, Miro and Giacometti, however, wasn't showing
his first non-Western art exhibition. The previous year he presented, in
association with the same Parisian dealer, Charles Ratton, an Oceanic
Art exhibition (see Rubin, 1987, p.115 for a view of the exhibition) and
two years later a more general show entitled America, Oceania, Africa (op.
cit., p.114).
It may seem surprising that the Bartos Fang head was presented in two
simultaneous exhibitions. The answer to this enigma may lie in the MoMA
entry register (No. 35493), which mentions "(to Matisse, March 28)" (We
would like to thank Jean-Louis Paudrat for the information about African
Negro Art). The Pierre Matisse exhibition did not open until March 30,
therefore it is possible that the head was only presented 10 days at the
MoMA (March 18 to 28) before being given to Matisse for his exhibition.
This theory can also explain why the object was not subsequently
photographed by Walker Evans.
The Bartos Fang head appears in the Dr. Gaston Durville archives. He was
well-known in the years 1930s to 1950s for his theories. Naturists, he
was co-director of the Institut de Mdecine Naturelle and author of
several treatises on this subject. Moreover, he was an avid collector of
African art and especially Gabon and Cameroon Fang art. He was planning
to write a book on the Fang statuary, but this project was not realized,
only remnants in the archives of this project. They are composed of
object photos, from his collection and from other collections, from some
of the most famous collectors of that time, such as Charles Ratton,
Maurice Ratton, Paul Guillaume, Pierre and Claude Vérité, La Reine
Margot (Mr. Shanté), Olivier Lecorneur and Jean Roudillon. When Durville
had no pictures, he made drawings copied from books and auction
catalogs.The photograph of the Bartos head was probably given by Ratton
to Durville for the lectures that he on Pahouin Art at the Gallery
Richer on July 1, 8, 15, 22, 1933. Nothing, however, can support this
last hypothesis.
Notice relating to the Fang reliquary head, from the Ratton-Bartos
collections
By Louis Perrois
The Fang reliquary head from the Bartos Collection (24cm.-9 in.) which
rested in this American family's collection for half a century, is a
masterpiece of the sculptural art of this major African style: an
exceptional and rare object, both intimate and expressive, an archetype
of the Northern Gabon "helmeted" and braided coiffure with its small
concave face, its prognathous mouth and its plaited hair delicately
engraved, enveloped with a thick black patina, seeping in passages, as
it should be.
With its rounded volume, this ancestral head, eyema-byeri, or
angokh-nlô-byeri, presents a wide and beautifully curved forehead in a
quarter-sphere shape which disappear in the palm of the face and, under
the nose (eroded), returns in the mouth with full lips. The latter is
stylized and presents the characteristic Gabonese Fang 'pout'. We can
see on the face evidence of ritual sampling of wood chips, used in the
composition of magic "drugs" (byan), and also deeper notches made with a
machete - perhaps done when it was collected, in order to desacralize
the object(?); there is also evidence on the surface of rodent attacks.
Inside hollowed orbits, the large almond shaped eyes are marked with
brass pupils. On each side of the cheeks and located far behind the
maxillary areas, small chevron-shaped ears bring out the partly shaved
temples.
The coiffure is particularly well-treated. It shows two large and flat
plaited braids, finely engraved in chevron shapes, on both sides of the
axial band, decorated with low relief friezes of diamond motifs, which
start from the top of the forehead, behind a headband (frontal and
temporal), and fall on the neck as a ponytail. This type of hair dress,
in the real daily life of the 19th century Fang, could be done either
with the hair, finely plaited, or with an artificial hairpiece made of
bamboo strips and fiber, decorated with pearl buttons, superadded and
attached to the head (nlo-ô-ngo). These headdresses were worn either by
men or women. At the top of the forehead, we see the beginning of axial
scarification and a small hole that could have been used to attach red
parrot feathers (asè ko), the mark of the sacred, which always adorned
byeri figures when they were active.
The cylindrical and massive neck is exceptionally decorated at the back
with a double longitudinal engraved pattern. Having been shortened after
its collection, it is extended by a thinner tenon (4cm.-1 in.-in height)
which serves to maintain the sculpture. Initially, a monoxyle peduncle
used to fix the head set into a reliquary box made of bark, nsekh-byeri.
This detail, usually hidden by a base, is attested on most other known
Fang heads. The base into which it rests today was possibly made by
Charles Bauer.
Dating from at least the 19th century, the head has been for decades
impregnated with an ointment made out of palm oil, charcoal and copal
resin, during propitiatory rites that its own lineage regularly applied
from generation to generation. Symbolic evocation of an ancestor, this
type of representation coexisted with full-length statuettes, at least
in the early 20th century as the German ethnologist G. Tessmann noted in
Rio Muni in 1907 (see "Die Pangwe", 1913, vol.2, p.118, fig.43) and the
Pastor Grébert in the 1920s in the Ogooué region (cf. Grébert, 2003,
folios 143 and 197). However, some specialists have speculated that the
Fang heads had historically preceded the use of statues (used also as
puppets during the melan rites), a sculpture more directly evoking
skulls which were, in fact, the sacred elements of worship.
Among the directly comparable known Fang heads, we can mention a few
works studied in my book La Statuaire Fan, Gabon, 1972, and classified
as Northern Gabon Betsi Fang heads with nlo-o-ngo or "helmeted" hair
dress: no.52, p.95 (Drouot, Paris, May 7th, 1931, 19cm.), no.149, p.347
(Schwob collection, Brussels, 27cm. - object exhibited in Marseille in
1992, Byeri fang, Sculptures d'ancêtres en Afrique, Musée de la Vieille
Charité, pp.162-163 - nose and mouth very eroded because of ritual
sampling). Other works with historical pedigree: the "Ratton-Carré"
head, 37,5cm. (former Charles Ratton and Louis Carré collections, 1932)
sold in Paris in 2002 and 2008 (Artcurial-Briest-Poulain-Le Fur, Paris,
December 11, 2002, "Art Tribal: Succession Olga Carré, née Burel,
Ancienne collection Louis Carré", lot no.114, Sotheby's, Paris, December
4, 2008, no.132), and finally a reliquary head from the Paul Guillaume
Collection and Lois Collection, New York 34cm. (in "Eternal Ancestors,
The Art of the Central African Reliquary", A. LaGamma, 2007, no.46,
pp.202-203, Sotheby's, Paris, 30 November 2010, no.27).
This reliquary head, rediscovered, appears today in the light, with its
slightly tortured face through the necessities of the byeri rites laid
upon it, imposing its sculptural quality and the subtle refinement of
its refined coiffure. This is indeed a masterpiece of the Fang statuary
of Equatorial Africa.Christie's, Salle de vente
🔓Accès libre sans carte bancaire.
Titre de la vente : Art Africain et Océanien
Date de la vente : 19/06/2013
🔓Accès libre sans carte bancaire.
Référence de l'enchère
: Live Sale
