£4,500
Auction: 8 June 2022 at 14:00 BST
carved fernwood, of totemic form with a stylized oversized head carved with prominent eyes and a gaping mouth, the arms held in at the midriff towards the genitals, the knees bent below, raised on a bespoke mount with a label reading "Totem du Pacifique. Big Numbers 65. Solomon Islands [sic]" and a second Gunter Sachs collection label
Provenance:
Sotheby's, The Gunter Sachs Collection, London 23rd March 2012, lot 256
Gunter Sachs, Switzerland
Note:
"Much of the art of central and northern Vanuatu in the southwest Pacific is associated with grade rituals, a hierarchical series of initiations, each of which confers successively greater religious and political authority during life and in the realm of the dead. In some areas, individuals who have reached the highest grades are considered the living dead, having already achieved the status of ancestors.
Men’s and women’s grade rituals exist in most areas, but sculpture is created almost exclusively for men’s grade rites. Figures are carved from fern wood, the fibrous trunk of a tree fern composed of aerial roots surrounding a woody core. During the grade rites, grade figures are erected on the dancing ground and serve as temporary abode for the spirits associated with the grade. After the ceremony, the figure, its purpose served, is left on the dancing ground, its supernatural powers waning as it slowly disintegrates."
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022
For an example in similar pose, please see: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 1978.412.735