ART on View house, they found an imposing statue of African origin standing on a piece of furniture. Recognizing that it had merit, they arranged to acquire it. They took the piece to a major auction house in Paris, where they had it appraised. It was confirmed that the sculpture is a particularly fine standing chief figure produced in the nineteenth century by the Tshokwe, who inhabit central and eastern Angola as well as parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and that it was of considerable value. Not satisfied with just one assessment, one of the Portuguese dealers went to the gallery district in the Sixth and showed a photo of it to Alain de Monbrison, who, feeling it had been undervalued, paid somewhat more than twice the appraisal price based on the image alone. He, in turn, rapidly placed it in a major private collection, where it resides today.1 The sculpture bears strong stylistic resemblances to two other major Tshokwe figures. Two and a half years after our example surfaced, one of these was to sell in the Vérité auction for a record 3,781,256 euros and is now in the collection of the Museum Rietburg in Zurich (fig. 1). It is thought to have been in Lisbon by 1924, though how it got there is unknown. The second is a seated figure of a chief holding a lamellophone that last sold publicly in 1981 in a sale by Loudmer-Poulain in Paris. After a stint on loan to the Nelson Atkins Museum, it is now in the collection of the Metropolitan 138 Museum of Art in New York (fig. 2). This example was collected in Angola by Count Admiral Francisco Antonio Gonçalves Cardoso (1800–1875), presumably while he was governor of Portuguese Angola between 1866 and 1869. All three figures are chiefly images, whose aggressive posture is meant to evoke strength and royal power, while the flexed stance (apparent even in the seated figure) indicates stealth. The elaborate headdress/coiffure is the mutwe wa kayanda (fig. 4), which is traditionally worn by Tshokwe rulers and typically appears on such representations.2 It is supernaturally empowered with a central horn, indicated FIG. 6a and b (above left and below): Unidentified Catholic mission in Angola, where the sculpture in figs. 3 & 9 was acquired in 1934/35. Photo: VillasBoas family. Courtesy of Alain de Monbrison, Paris. FIG. 7 (above): Manuel Fuscini VillasBoas with friends and Catholic missionaries, 1934/35. Photo: VillasBoas family. Courtesy of Alain de Monbrison, Paris. FIG. 8 (above right): VillasBoas family in the 1950s with the figure in the background center right. Photo: VillasBoas family. Courtesy of Alain de Monbrison, Paris. FIG. 9 (right): Back view of fig. 3. Photo: Don Tuttle. on these sculptures by a sort of stem at the top of the head. The headdress frames a large forehead above penetrating eyes, together conveying intelligence, wisdom, and the ability to see clearly, both physically and spiritually. With its staff in one hand and horn in the other, the Rietberg example classically represents the culture hero Chibinda Ilunga, the Luba prince believed to have married a Lunda chieftainess around 1600, bringing the art of hunting and a line of divine kingship to what would soon become the Lunda Empire and, by extension, to the Tshokwe, who were later to dominate the region. The other two figures lack the specific attributes of Chibinda Ilunga but likely represent a synthesis of the mythical figure with the chiefs they are intended to portray. Perhaps the most prominent attribute of all three figures is their oversized hands that project forward from the mid torso in a gesture known as taci. This is specific to kings and is indicative of his own vitality and the prosperity of his kingdom, essentially the power and strength both of the chief and of his people. It may further quite literally reference the active, “hands-on” approach that Tshokwe chiefs played in maintaining the welfare of their community on visible and invisible levels. Such figures were important royal icons. Trade with Europe and with the interior in the nineteenth century brought great wealth to the rulers of the Tshokwe chiefdoms. One
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