NKISI - A MAGICAL FIGURE FROM THE COLLECTION OF ROBERT VISSER (1860 - 1937)

Estimated Value:

800 € - 1.200 €

Result:

4.273 € incl. Premium and VAT

Description:

Zaire, Yombe, probably before 1903
H 19 cm
Male figure standing on a square base with forearms not elaborated. Round mirror box on the torso. Ovoid head carved into a conical knob on the top. Grooved brows. Curved lips expose deformed teeth. Iron roller cuff around the neck, red cloth strip around the legs. Wood, resin, mirror glass. On the back in white letters collection numbering: 32395 Majombe R. Visser.
Important Bavarian private collection, acquired at Lempertz Brussels, 23.2.1991, lot 117.
This may be one of the 177 nkisi that Robert Visser donated to the collections of German ethnological museums in Stuttgart, Berlin and Leipzig in 1903. The collection auctioned at Lempertz in 1991 is an important German private collection, most of which was acquired from Ludwig Bretschneider (1909 - 1987) in the 1950s and 1960s. Ludwig Bretschneider exchanged and acquired numerous objects from the holdings of the Linden Museum in Stuttgart under the aegis of the then curator, from 1955 to 1971, and later director, from 1971 - 1986, Dr. Friedrich Kussmaul. However, it could also be one of the nkisi from the exchange deals of the Grassi Museum Leipzig, see for this a nkisi from the holdings of the museum with further references to Robert Visser and his collection, see SKD Online Collection, Maf 09004 (Grassi Museum Leipzig).

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