Fine and Rare Luba-Kalundwe Staff, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Fine and Rare Luba-Kalundwe Staff, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Wood, metal strips, metal tacks, glass beads, pigment, ritual patination
Height 36in (91.5cm)

Provenance
Hélène and Philippe Leloup, New York/Paris
Arnold and Lucille Alderman Collection, New Haven, Connecticut
Sotheby's, New York, 17 May 2002, Lot 10
Alain Naoum, Brussels
Richard Scheller Collection, San Francisco
Private Collection

As noted by Mary Nooter and Allen Roberts, 'African staffs have many roles and functions. They support and comfort, bear one's weight, and protect one's interests; they can be used to prod and poke, thrash adversaries, or waive about in defiance. Ancestral presence can be as close at hand as the grip of one's staff, and, most important, staffs serve as metaphoric extensions of the hand. While they may thus be "adjuncts to the body" (Cartry, Michael, "From One Rite to Another: The Memory in Ritual and the Ethnologist's Recollection." In Understanding Rituals. Ed. D. de Coppet, 1992. London: Routledge, for the European Association of Social Anthropologists.), Luba staffs also record details of family history, migration, and genealogy. High-level officeholders carry staffs to public proceedings, and as the basis for historical recitations in which they honor their ancestors, brag about the accomplishments of their lineages, and teach their descendants about family ties to Luba kingship.' (Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History, The Museum for African Art, New York, Prestel, 1996, p. 162)

According to Frank Herreman, "The most westerly of the Luba groups evolved a sculptural formal language in which Songye and Chokwe influences can be discerned. In the [figure] on this chief's staff - a symbol of authority - the attitude of the arms and the large hands are clearly of Chokwe origin. The execution of the face shows a resemblance to that of Songye figures and masks, with their protruding mouths and angular chins." (Kooten, Toos van, Gerard van den Heuvel, Sculptuur uit Afrika en Oceanië : Sculpture from Africa and Oceania, Otterloo, Rijksmuseum, 1990, p. 166, text to cat. 73)

For other staffs from the same atelier, see one formerly in The Carlo Monzino Collection, Lugano (Vogel, Susan, The Aesthetics of African Art: The Carlo Monzino Collection, 1986, p 175, no. 127); a second formerly in The Bronson Collection, Los Angeles (Sotheby's, New York, 18 May 1992, lot 197); the finial of a third formerly in the Paolo Morigi Collection (Sotheby's, London, 21 June 1979 and Sotheby's, Paris, 6 December 2005, lot 117); and a fourth formerly in The Fred Jahn Collection, Munich (Sotheby's, New York, 16 May 2008, lot 178).