Left top to bottom: Heddle pulley. Baule, Côte d’Ivoire. Private collection, New York. Galerie Jacques Germain. Photo: Hugues Dubois. Mask. Bete-Guro, Côte d’Ivoire. 19th century. Collected by Jean-Baptiste Filloux (France) between 1911 and 1913. Private collection, Paris. Galerie Jacques Germain. Photo: Hugues Dubois. Figure, nkisi. Songye, DR Congo. Ex Willy Mestach, Brussels; John Lens, Anvers (c. 1950). Galerie Didier Claes. Photo: Philippe de Formanoir, Paso Doble. Six figures from the same vodun altar. Adja, Benin. Galerie Serge Schoffel. Right: Standing figure, uli. New Ireland. 18th–19th century. Fondation Edmund Muller, Beromunster, Switzerland, no. 3750. Galerie Serge Schoffel. BRAFA 2014 Brussels—Once again, from January 25 through February 2, 2014, the former Tour and Taxis railroad depot will be the setting for the Brussels Antiques and Fine Arts Fair (BRAFA), which promises, as always, to be of great interest to Belgian collectors as well as those who will attend from elsewhere. Tribal art will be represented this year by ten dealers and galleries: Pierre Dartevelle, Bernard Dulon, Yann Ferrandin, Jacques Germain, Bernard de Grunne, Sarah de Monbrison, Adrian Schlag, Serge Schoffel, and Galerie Schoffel-Valluet, as well as by the event’s vice president, Didier Claes. The latter will present a piece that will undoubtedly be one of the show’s highlights: a powerful Songye nkisi from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was exhibited at the Fêtes de la Ville in Antwerp in 1937–1938 and later published in Frans Olbrechts’ 1946 reference work Plastiek van Kongo. Galerie Jacques Germain will similarly focus on the presentation of a single exceptional piece: an anthropomorphic Bete or Guro mask from Cote d’Ivoire collected by Jean-Baptiste Filloux between 1911 and 1913 and of a type that has not been used for more than a century. Serge Schoffel’s plans also deserve special mention with its presentation of Fon Vodun: Entre Art et Matière, un Visage Mystérieux de l’Afrique (Vodun Fon: Between Art and Material, a Mysterious Face of Africa), which will be an exhibition on this little-known subject. Schoffel will also show two important Oceanic pieces: the New Ireland uli figure formerly in the Edmond Müller Collection and the Asmat figure that formerly belonged to Charles Ratton and Pierre Matisse, which was recently exhibited in Charles Ratton: l’Invention des Arts Primitifs at the Musée du Quai Branly. Also, Yann Ferrandin will be presenting at the prestigious BRAFA for the first time and will show a group of works of subtle beauty from Africa, Oceania, Indonesia, and North America, including a highly refined Eskimo mask, a fine Nias Island ancestor figure, and a beautiful Hemba stool. BRAFA ART TALKS: A Study of a Luba Mask There is a horned Luba helmet mask which is as fascinating as it is mysterious. It was collected by Oscar Michaux in the 1890s in the DRC and is one of the masterpieces in the collection of the Musée Royal d’Afrique Centrale in Tervuren. Many questions remain about its function, its stylistic origin, and its symbolism. Dr. Julien Volper will shed light on some of the piece’s iconographic aspects at a lecture, sponsored by this magazine, which will take place on January 29 at 2:30 p.m. as part of the BRAFA Art Talks series, organized in collaboration with BIAPAL asbl.
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