LEMPERTZ Brussels—On January 28, 2014, Lempertz auction house will hold its first sale in its new Brussels location at the former 42 Galerie Leroy Frères space on Rue du Grand Cerf, a historic building designed by architect Jules Barbier. True to its tradition, the Lempertz sale will primarily feature African art, and highlights will include a Keaka figure and a Yoruba sculptural group, the latter by Thomas Ona Odulate and collected in the beginning of the twentieth century by Leslie Charles Sibun. Oceanic art will also be represented, most notably by a New Ireland malanggan sculpture, a Sepik River suspension hook from Papua New Guinea, and a Doreh region korwar figure that has been in the family of the German individual who collected it in situ nearly a century ago. SOTHEBY’S Paris—It appears that the next Sotheby’s tribal art auction will be about honoring the great collectors and dealers of the first half of the twentieth century, a seminal period in the history of the appreciation of tribal art in the West, since its sale on December 11 includes so many objects that passed through their hands. The highlight of the auction will undoubtedly be a Fang reliquary figure from Gabon that belonged to Georges de Miré, a collector who, a few days before the sale of his collection on December 16, 1931, the press acknowledged as owning the finest collection of old African artworks. Another Gabonese reliquary guardian figure, this one of Kota origin and with a prestigious provenance, will also be offered. The piece, remarkable for its purity of manufacture, belonged to the notable between-the-wars dealer Paul Guillaume and was shown at the legendary African Negro Art exhibition at MOMA in New York in 1935. Helena Rubinstein will also be remembered with a Bamana statue collected in Mali by Frederick Lem. Its geometric shapes echo those of the creations of modernist artists that the pioneering collector admired. A fine Maori chief’s adze is especially noteworthy among the Oceanic objects that Malanggan sculpture. New Ireland. Ex Ludwig Bretschneider. Est. 30,000–50,000 euros. To be offered at Lempertz, Brussels, on January 28, 2014. Left: The former Galerie Leroy Frères space in Brussels, now home to Lempertz. Below: Korwar figure. West Papua province, Indonesia. Est. 15,000–20,000 euros. To be offered at Lempertz, Brussels, on January 28, 2014. Reliquary guardian figure. Fang, Gabon. Ex Georges de Miré, Paris; Nico Mazaraki, Paris; Albert Kleinmann, Paris. Est. 500,000–700,000 euros. To be offered at Sotheby’s, Paris, on December 11, 2013. Chief’s adze. Maori, New Zealand. Ex Dr. Ralph Linton, New Haven, Connecticut; Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York; The Museum of Primitive Art, New York, April 1967, donated by Nelson A. Rockefeller (on permanent loan since August 1956). Est. 150,000–200,000 euros. To be offered at Sotheby’s, Paris, on December 11, 2013.
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