African Arts Gallery

Belgian African art collection
The Luba are renowned for their statuary and in particular their neckrests and stools made up of a caryatid figure. The figures adorning this neckrest that must preserve the complex headdress of its owner refer to Luba royalty. But neckrests were also used to support the heads of the deceased, and sometimes, according to Albert Maesen, buried in their place. Brown satin patina, light pigment residues.
The Luba (Baluba in Chiluba) are a people of Central Africa. Their cradle is Katanga, more precisely the region of the Lubu River, hence the name (Baluba, which means “the Lubas”). They were born from a secession of the Songhoy ethnic group, under the leadership of Ilunga Kalala who killed the old king Kongolo who has since been revered in the form of a python. In the 16th century they created a state, organized as a decentralized chiefdom, which stretched from the Kasai River to Lake Tanganyika. The chiefdoms cover a small territory without any real border which includes at most three villages. Source: "Luba" F. Neyt