African Arts Gallery

The Moba statues are recognizable by their extremely simplified sculpture, always showing the same pattern: an imposing spherical head sometimes engraved with slender features resting on a body and filiform limbs, patinas vary from bright dark brown to light-colored wood. It has a beautiful patina of dark use on which there are leftover libations. The chitcheri represents an ancestor symbolized by a human body with an abstract face. It is initially planted in the ground. Tchitcheri sakwa evoke the memory of the founder of a clan.

Ex private French collection of African art.

This Tchitcheri Moba statue have a very massive and at the same time very elongated look. This is a characteristic of the ethnic group Moba . With its forms and proportions, this piece evokes the Bronze statues of Giacometti .

The Tchitcheri represents an ancestor symbolized by a human body and an abstract face. It's originally standing in the soil. On this piece we can see some native repair on the right arm.

In African art, we find in several ethnic groups this tendency to create reliquary baskets, so it is not uncommon to find versions sometimes flared as in the Luba and Songye, or more vertical versions like this one.
In the basket are intertwined elements of various materials. Here, an anthropomorphic statuette with a simplistic face and raw patina shares the space with a piece of skull with small horns and other pieces of wood and rope.

The Losso practiced the cult of the ancestors, it was a good omen to honor them in order to attract their benevolence. Losso pieces are extremely rare.