- Lot 134

Lot n° 134
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Estimation :
8000 - 12000 EUR
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Result : 48 000EUR
- Lot 134
Old ridge arrow - Kanak - New Caledonia The ridge arrow is the most important of all the objects constituting the Kanak material heritage. Placed at the top of the large circular mwârö chief's huts, "our great house", it is the attribute of the large chief's huts, it is "the chief's ornament". These sculptures adorned the buildings of the most prestigious lineages, and only the chiefs of high renown had the capacity to mobilize a sufficient number of people and means to raise the large huts that "their people" were willing to put at their disposal. The ridge sculpture indicates that one is entering a zone of high customary tension. It is the strongest symbol of Kanak identity and has been chosen as an emblem by the Kanak people. The example presented here is of a very beautiful age attested by its gullied surface, the oxidation of the wood, even testifying to a real desiccation. But it is also and above all its style which attests to the archaism of this work, well expressive, nervous and well detached, like the treatment of the intense gaze of the sculpted eyes in projected canons, its well hollowed out nostrils and the volumes of the swollen cheeks supporting the symbolic importance of breathing and the breath allowing speech, the sacred Word of the chief, embodied in the ridge arrow. The various appendages, unfortunately broken off in the past, and which give rhythm to these sculptures, symbolically represent the knots of vegetable fibres which were attached to delimit and indicate the taboo zones forbidden to the uninitiated. On the median appendage, there is a frieze engraved in herringbone pattern that meets in the center, but on the other hand, a fine mesh of the protective necklace-talisman net attached around the neck seems to have been printed or struck by a beater rather than engraved, which is rarely seen. This very fine example of a Kanak ridge arrow has attributes that still bear witness to the ancient Kanak traditional world, where strength, virility, and wisdom are clearly expressed by the gaze, the nervousness of the treatment of the nose emblematic in Kanak arts, the presence of the beard, the beginning of a ceremonial turban headdress, and also the presence of the traditional necklace-talisman bearing protective stones or plants, which has not yet been replaced by a representation of the Catholic cross, as is already the case on the ridge spires from the second half of the 19th century. Finally, we note the presence of remnants of ochre pigments in the mouth, once again reminding us of the importance of the chief's word. Wolf wood ( Montrouzeria cauliflora ), very beautiful patina of use, wear, cracks of age, visible accidents and lacks, broken tip glued, relics of old ochre and black pigments. H: 256 cm. Provenance: Private collection Collected in the 1930s by the grandfather of the present owner. Expert: Johann Levy Expert CNE johann.levy@free.fr
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