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MEG 31 FIG. 7 (right): Complete reliquary ensemble, nsekh-obyeri (detail). Fang, Betsi subgroup, Njolé, Middle Ogooué, Gabon. 20th century. Wood, bark, iron, vegetal fiber, bone. H: 64 cm (figure only). Acquired from Fernand Grébert in 1936. MEG Inv. ETHAF 015232. FIG. 8 (below): Female ancestor figure. Punu, Ngounié Valley, Equatorial Gabon. 19th or early 20th century. Wood. H: 46 cm. Donated by the painter Émile Chambon in 1981; purchased from Pierre Vérité in Paris in 1937. MEG Inv. ETHAF 044278. home to an exceptionally diversified mosaic of cultures, which the museum’s display illustrates with many remarkable objects, including a still-sealed Batak pukpuk container from Sumatra (fig. 6) and a collection of Nias ritual objects. An examination of opium use, which ravaged China during the colonial period beginning in the nineteenth century before it spread to the West, concludes the Asian section. In the African installation, the collection is presented by cultural area. It focuses on a particular subject within each of these and, somewhat surprisingly, painting provides the common thread that links these sections. In addition to exploring various subjects, the installation provides insight into the collection’s various stages of development. It also identifies many of those who assembled it: missionaries, such as Jean Rusillon (1872–1938), Josette Debarge (stationed at Fumban in the 1930s), and Pastor Alfred Hauenstein; explorers including Edgard Aubert de la Rüe and Adrian Conan Doyle; ethnographers like Henri Lagotala and Hans Himmelheber (1908–2003); and even major dealers including Jeanne Walschot and Pierre Vérité, to name just a few. The MEG’s collection of objects from Gabon is significant for the museum and deserves special mention. Most of it comes from Pastor Fernand Grébert (1886–1956), a missionary who was active there from 1913 through 1931. Other important works from the region came to the MEG through painter Émile Chambon, whose uncle had spent time there (fig. 8). The Esibaña lineage Fang reliquary (fig. 7) acquired from Grébert in 1936 is undoubtedly one of the most important pieces in this collection from an ethnographic point of view because its history is so fully documented. This even includes information about its last indigenous owner and his relationship to the person whose relics the object contains. To our knowledge, this depth of documentation is unique. The African section closes with a display devoted to Madagascar and a second that presents Ethiopian paintings and Coptic liturgical objects. Black-and-white chiaroscuro-like paintings signed by the artist (hova) Rajona in the 1920s are presented alongside Sakalava divination birds (ody), objects that were documented in the unique and important photographic collection of Jacques Faublée (INALCO), given to the museum by Mme. Guérin-Faublée in 2008. The cultures of the at least 10,000 islands that constitute Oceania are the subject of the next section. It traces the voyages the peoples there made as well as those made by Europeans into their area. As with Africa, the presentation of the objects in the display is arranged according to cultural area, which makes


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