40 21st January 2012 international events Out of Africa, into Paris ■ French salerooms underline their tribal strength


Anne Crane reports £1 = €1.10


THE last weeks of 2011 saw plenty of activity in the Paris rooms. In our last major review of pre-Christmas sales in France, we look at results in Tribal Art, one of their market strengths, along with French silver and some notable picture results.


TRIBAL art produced some substantial individual results at auction during the closing weeks of 2011. Sotheby’s select 96-lot auction on


December 14 yielded a hammer total of €7.7m (£7m) with some healthy selling rates of 81% by volume and 95% by value. Christie’s December13 offering


was swelled to double the size of their competitors by a 103-lot, single-owner sale of Oceanic art from the collection of Daniel Blau, but this was somewhat cold-shouldered, resulting in a much lower overall take-up of 53% by volume and 75% by value to chalk up a total of €3.77m (£3.4m). Both houses laid claim to a clutch


of auction highs for African masks and statuettes from various tribes: a Punu mask and a Hungaan and Yoruba work at Sotheby’s, and a Malagan mask, a Fon sculpture and a Segou (Mali) statuette at Christie’s. Provenance, all important in this field,


demonstrated its pulling power with multi-estimate results for pieces that had come fresh from old documented collections. Buying at this upper level was, not surprisingly, dominated by collectors who comprised an international roll-call of enthusiasts. Both houses saw a multi-estimate top


price of €850,000 (£772,730). Topping the tribal bill at Christie’s was


a piece of Benin art, an 11in (28cm) high brass, silver and gold-covered figure of a standing lion. Pieces featuring this quality of


metalwork would have been commissions of considerable importance. This example is thought to have been part of the treasury of King Glélé (d.1889) of Dahomy (as Benin was formerly known until it retook the name of the one- time West African empire). King Glélé’s


symbol was a lion and it was probably commissioned from the artist Allode Huntondjifon. Christie’s guide of €200,000-300,000


was left in the dust as bidding sailed to over three times that level. This strong result partly compensated


for the failure of a couple of the sale’s potential high-flyers, including a rare, 20in (51cm) high, carved wooden Luba caryatid figure from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, guided at €500,000-800,000. Following behind the Benin lion, this


time at an upper-estimate €775,000 (£704,545), was a striking and well- provenanced, 22in (58cm) high, Fang ‘Ngil’ mask that had passed down by direct descent from Leon Truitard (1885- 1972), who brought it back to Burgundy in the 1920s, having served as Colonial


Administrator in Cameroon. Ngil masks are highly prized rarities. This unpublished example, never before on the market, was understandably sought after. Much more unexpected was the


bidding on a piece from the American section, a 7½in (18.5cm) high Tlingit mosquito mask from the North West coast of America. Notable for its distinctive long nose,


the mask, also known as a ‘scratcher’, played a comic role in ceremonies rather like jesters. Christie’s example had a provenance back to 1949 when it was acquired by the American Indian Museum in New York. It had been in the possession of the vendor since 1975. A guide of €30,000-50,000 was


rapidly outstripped, with the hammer falling at €230,000 (£209,010), reckoned to be the highest price paid at auction for


Right: metal-covered Benin standing lion, €850,000 (£772,730) at Christie’s.


Below left: carved ivory pendant from the Democratic Republic of Congo – €650,000 (£590,910) at Sotheby’s.


Below right: Punu Ikwara wooden mask from Gabon, €850,000 (£772,730) at Sotheby’s.


a mask of this type. Over at Sotheby’s the day afterwards


the auctioneers’ €850,000 (£772,730) best-seller was a 12in (32cm ) high Punu mask from Gabon. Punu masks come in different forms


– the more widespread okuyi or white masks embodying the spirit of a young woman and the much scarcer ikwara masks, like this version, which have been dyed black with bright red decoration. This makes it sufficiently similar to


another ikwara mask, owned by Maurice de Vlaminck and now in the Musée du Quai Branly, for both to be attributed to the same master sculptor. Another piece with a good early


provenance, having been acquired around 1927 in the French Congo by Dr Jean Geoffroy Jung, a geological engineer, the mask probably dates back to the late 18th century. It appears to have changed hands just twice since then, selling to the Paris dealer Bernard Dulon and then to the private collector who acquired it in 2004. The distinctive 12in (32cm) high mask was secured by a private collector for double the estimate, another auction high for a mask of this type. Much more unexpected, though, was


the price bid for a 3in (8cm) high, carved ivory pendant of a kneeling figure from the Hungaan people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It had been purchased at a local


UK auction by a British buyer around 1980 and then entered another private collection. Sotheby’s had guided it at €30,000-50,000 only to see it take €650,000 (£590,910). There was another unexpected


high flyer in the Oceanic section when


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