Superb Canoe Prow Ornament, New Georgia Island, Solomon Islands

Superb Canoe Prow Ornament, New Georgia Island, Solomon Islands
nguzu nguzu
height 10 7/8in (27.6cm)

Provenance
John J. Klejman, The J.J. Klejman Gallery, New York
Ray and Laura Wielgus Collection, Chicago and Tucson, no. 58.103
Lance and Roberta Entwistle, London and Paris
American Private Collection, acquired in 1994

Published and Exhibited
The Ray and Laura Wielgus Collection, Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, 1966, no. 39

Sir David Attenborough notes, "There is no shortage of descriptions of the Solomon Islanders by people who visited them in the nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries. They were savage, bloodthirsty and addicted to head-hunting. Their war canoes were much feared. Sixty feet long and carrying up to a hundred warriors paddling to the rhythm of blasts on a conch-shell trumpet, they could reach speeds of fifteen knots and easily overhaul a European sailing ship if the winds were light.

But visitors to the Solomons also brought objects back from the islands and these tell a different story. They reveal a people who delighted in visual beauty and who invented a decorative style that demands one of the most time-consuming techniques imaginable - lines of pearly plates, taken from nautilus shell and carefully cut into rings, stars and zigzags. The islanders used it to embellish all the things they most valued - their feast bowls, their ceremonial clubs, the statues of their gods and, perhaps most memorable of all, the small figureheads that they tied to the bows of their war canoes to detect hidden reefs and guide them through treacherous waters." (Howarth, Crispin, Varilaku - Pacific Arts from the Solomon Islands, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2011, p. 7)

Howarth later notes, "Canoe-prow figureheads were an important part of a war canoe. Their main recorded function was to serve the canoe and its warriors in a protective manner. The spirit of the prow figure protected against natural and supernatural elements: anything from storms and dangerous waters to menacing water spirits. The large eyes and ears aided in warding off sea spirits; the ears to hear everything in the air and underwater, the eyes fixed open in an ever-watchful, piercing gaze." (Ibid., p. 94)

This rare and refined nguzu nguzu is intricately carved in a light wood, the remarkably large head with tall rounded top gracefully sloping down in front into the line of the nose curving upwards with open flared nostrils; the mouth slightly open with chin resting sensitively on the hands brought together at the front; enhanced with delicate and superbly cut pearl shell (Meleagrina margaritifera) inlay in the eyes and the linear and curvilinear decorative motifs on the face; a ridge to the back pierced with a hole for attachment to the canoe; varied dark-brown glossy patina.