Bangwa Figure
Bangwa Ancestor Figure (Lefem)
Cameroon
Early 20th century
Wood. Height: 51 in.
Price: $235,000
Description
“The Bangwa live in precipitous country between the eastern grassfields of Cameroon and the western rain forests. They are divided into several miniature kingdoms each of which is ruled by chiefs supported by a hierarchy of retainers, subchiefs and nobles. Culturally and linguistically they are related to the Bamileke of East Cameroon, but owing to their isolation have suffered less from European contact. Bangwa sculpture is an especially fine example of the art of the Cameroon grassfields, which has a homogeneity rare even in West Africa.”[1]
A German adventurer named Gustav Conrau was the first European to make contact with the Bangwa, reaching Fontem in 1898, where he befriended the powerful chieftain Assunganyi. In the short period of their association, Conrau sent innumerable artifacts from Fontem to the Konigliches Museum fur Volkerkunde (now the Ethnologisiches Museum der Staatlichen Museen), Berlin, many of which remain in their collection to the present and provide priceless documentation of the ethnographic and artistic expressions of the Bangwa.[2] Two examples de-accessioned from the museum in the 1920’s remain the most significant examples of Bangwa in the European canon—the “King” and “Queen” ancestor figures now held by the Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, and the Dapper Foundation, Paris. The “Queen” appeared in photographs by Walker Evans (1935), and Man Ray (1937), and both pieces have sold repeatedly over the years.[3]
Fortuitously for the Bangwa, their inaccessible location in the highlands, and the longevity of the Fontem chief Assunganyi (who died in 1951), kept the artistic traditions alive and in relative stasis well into the 20th century.[4] In 1966-67, Robert Brain, a student from the University College, London, toured the Bangwa heartland and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the specifics of Bangwa cultural structure, and followed that with “Bangwa Funerary Sculpture,” in which he delves specifically into the art and artistic milieu of the Bangwa at the time. To be a carver--unlike being a farmer, for example--was a highly respected role, and many of the men were encouraged from youth to try their hands. European pressure to acquire these beautiful sculptures had also begun to affect workmanship, so already Brain noted a broad range in the quality of execution among carved examples across the board. For the nobles, however, and especially for the chieftains, an insistence on the carver’s skill was the norm. “They say that it used to take twenty years of apprenticeship before a sculptor could tackle an ancestor figure, and that a Night Society mask should not be attempted with any chance of success until a carver had both a daughter and a son.”[5]
Our example stands obviously within the tradition of the accomplished carver. The chiefs kept for themselves and their effigies the representations of royal regalia, including the leopard’s teeth necklace, leopard skin anklets, the long gourd of palm wine, (broken here), the enormous tobacco pipe, and the tall headdress, which signified with its height the long lineage of an important chief.[6] The open mouth, powerful posture, and exposed genitalia are meant to convey the vitality, fearlessness, and fecundity of an effective chief. The heavy patina infers not only heavy usage with frequent applications of ceremonial “medications,” but meticulous preservation by smoke and soot in a challenging climate.[7] This extraordinary piece reads well from all sides, and exhibits the expressiveness, craftsmanship, and beauty comparable only to the best-known pieces held in museums today.
Footnotes
[1] Brain, Robert and Pollock, Adam. Bangwa Funerary Sculpture, First Edition (London: University of Toronto Press, 1971). Foreword.
[2] von Lintig, Bettina. “On the Bangwa Collection: Formed by Gustav Conrau,” Tribal Art: 22 (1), no. 86 (Winter 2017): 94.
[3] Homberger, Lorenz ed., Cameroon: Art and Kings (Zürich: Museum Rietberg, 2008), 160.
[4] von Lintig, “On the Bangwa Collection,” 108.
[5] Brain and Pollock, Bangwa Funerary Sculpture, 62-63.
[6] Brain and Pollock, Bangwa Funerary Sculpture, 40-41.
[7] Brain and Pollock, Bangwa Funerary Sculpture, 59.
Christie's
Highly Important Bangwa, Fontem, Royal Memorial Ancestor Figure
Fontem Valley, Cameroon
Art Africain: Collection D'un Amateur: Live Auction 5596 4 December 2009, Paris. Lot 130.
Auction Estimate: Unpublished
Price Realized: 1,017,000 EUR
Second-Highest Single African Art Piece Sold at Auction from December 2009 -January 2010. See "Art in Motion: Top Ten Auction Results: December 2009-January 2010” Tribal Art: Quarterly Journal of the Art Culture and History of Traditional Peoples and New World Civilizations 14 (2), no. 55 (Spring 2010): 26.
(Photo: Christie's)
Sotheby’s
Bamileke-Bangwa Figure of a King
Fontem Valley, Cameroon
“Art of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas: Live Auction 21 November 2022, 14:00 EST, New York. Lot 48.
Auction Estimate: 60,000 - 90,000 USD
Price Realized: 214,200 USD
Note that this piece is damaged, missing both a hand and a leg. Navigate to linked photo above.
(Photo: Sotheby's)
Commemorative Lefem King Statue
Bangwa People, Fontem Cameroon
19th century
Hardwood with dark sheen
Musée du quai Branly, Paris.
(Photo: Collection Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, Musée du quai Branly).
Note: This notable example was sold at Auction (See Above) and subsequently shown in the Musée du quai Branly).
Commemorative Figure (Lefem)
Bangwa
19th - early 20th century
Wood, organic matter, fiber
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY)
Provenance
Before his death, the collector informed us that Ali Barete, the New York- based African trader, had taken the piece to Bloomington, Indiana in the late 1990s to show it to Roy Sieber, a prolific African Arts scholar, and Barete’s good friend. Sieber’s asessment was, without quoting: Everything looks right, it absolutely appears to be the ‘real deal,’ and that it was another example to be added to the small corpus of royal figures from the Bangwa people. To our knowledge, no documentation of Sieber’s opinion exists.
Brain, Robert. The Bangwa of West Cameroon: A Brief Account of Their History and Culture. London: University College of London, 1967.
Brain, Robert, and Adam Pollock. Bangwa Funerary Sculpture. First Edition. London: University of Toronto Press, 1971.
Homberger, Lorenz, ed. Cameroon: Art and Kings. Zürich: Museum Rietberg, 2008.
von Lintig, Bettina. “From Fontem to Berlin : The Long Journey of a Bangwa Lefem Staff.” Tribal Art: Quarterly Journal of the Art Culture and History of Traditional Peoples and New World Civilizations 19 (3), no. 76 (Summer 2015): 130–35.
von Lintig, Bettina. “On the Bangwa Collection: Formed by Gustav Conrau.” Tribal Art: Quarterly Journal of the Art Culture and History of Traditional Peoples and New World Civilizations 22 (1), no. 86 (Winter 2017): 94–113.
Newton, Douglas, and Tamara Northern, eds. Art of Oceania, Africa and the Americas from the Museum of Primitive Art. May-Aug. 1969. Catalogue by Douglas Newton, Tamara Northern, Robert Goldwater, Julie Jones. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969.
Schädler, Karl-Ferdinand. Encyclopedia of African Art and Culture. Munich: Panterra, 2009.