African Arts Gallery

Ex-collection French African art.
Two buckets covered with animal skin, which are firmly held by braided raffia ties, and each lined with a handful of wood, extend with a nozzle ending with a metal tip. The stylized head, with a two-tone patina, has two side panels framing a flat face. At the mouth, two appendages form a strange mustache. As the object is laid flat, the rear surface has characteristic erosions. According to an ancestral technique, these suffocators maintained the fire permanently for a few days. The apprentice blacksmiths were introduced by the elders to the sexual symbolism of the forge bellows. Beautiful patina of use. Controlled xylophageal attacks. It is at the border of Middle Congo and Gabon that the Mbété , Ambété , who claim a Kota.Brazza origin discovered them in 1877. Practicing the worship of ancestors, the Ngoye , like their close neighbors, their statues contained the relics of the deceased, usually thanks to a dorsal cavity. Their tribal artistic output, however, remains quite limited.