A seated figure with an elongated body, holding a sacred horn. The pure circular mouth emphasizes the fluent round shapes of the face. A closely related figure with a stylised coiffure and similar cubist face was collected in situ before 1894 by the German explorer Eugen Zintgraff and is today in the Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, published in Einstein 1915: pl. 41. Of the small corpus of early collected Fang figures, all are of a similar dry patina. In addtition, they all have long cylindrical bodies, short fleshy legs that seem draped around the lower torso, a straight, horizontal shoulder and large bulbous foreheads. The original protrusion that would have been fixed into the reliquairy basket is cut at the same height as the feet to make it stand without a base. Part of the right arm is missing, the left shoulder, wrist and left leg have minor fractures. 44 cm high.

Provenance:
Friedrich August Nauck was a member of the secret society ‘Schlarafia Dessavia’ that exhibited ethnographic curiosities till disbanded by the Nazi regime. This was the only african piece in the collection, others are the gong and ivory box on the photograph. It’s likely that it came through his cousin, doctor in tropical medicin Friedrich August Nauck, Hamburg;
Collection Friedrich August Nauck (Riga 1885–1948 Dessau);
Collection O. Rammelt. (VJ)