FIG. 9: Female fi gure. Lumbu, Gabon. Wood. H: 15.5 cm. Ex Helena Rubinstein. Offered at Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 21 April 1966, lot 237; offered again at Sotheby’s, New York, 14 November 2008, lot 14. Private collection. Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s. © Sotheby’s. FIG. 10 (below): Reliquary fi gure. Lumbu, Gabon. Wood, pigment. H: 123 cm. Musée Barbier-Mueller, Geneva, inv. 1019-9. © Musée Barbier-Mueller, Geneva. Photo: Studio Ferrazzini Bouchet. FEATURE reminiscent of Yombe fi gures, and, as they often are on Kongo statuary, the legs are bent in a position of respect and the large feet are “rake-like.” By virtue of its annulated neck, the remarkable fi gure in the Hamburg museum (fi g. 11) relates to a large female fi gure with raised arms (123 centimeters high), formerly in the Josef Mueller Collection and today in the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva (fi g. 10), as well as to the fi gure on the terminal of an ivory olifant that once belonged to Ralph Nash and then to Morris Pinto, before being sold at auction in New York in 2010 (fi g. 12).18 Two rows of fi ne white beads encircle the superb helmet coiffure, which crowns the extraordinarily beautiful head. The chest is high and juvenile, and scarifi cation in the form of six aligned lozenges of varying size adorns the chest. Large ankle bracelets cover the short legs, and the feet are rounded like those on amulets (discussed below). A fi gure with two calabashes in the Metropolitan Museum (inv. 1978.412.296, not illustrated here) shares similarities with the fi gure in the former John Quinn Collection, most notably in the hull-shaped coiffure, the broad shoulders, and “rake-shaped” feet. Both of these fi gures have small legs and heads that are disproportionately large in comparison to their bodies. This prominence given to the head is recurrent in the statuary of peoples of Bantu origin, for whom this part of the body has sacred signifi cance. It should also be noted that the Metropolitan Museum fi gure has its eyes fi xed on the heavens, symbolizing a state of trance, relationship with the spirit world, and contact with the ancestors upon whom fertility depended.19 Before examining another type of sculpture, let us return briefl y to the fi gure in the Rita and John Grunwald Collection mentioned above (fi g. 8). It is small (25 centimeters high), has harmonious lines, and is decorated with bracelets and a sumptuous necklace, details that are associated with high social status. A belt sculpted into the wood around the fi gure’s hips indicates that the genitalia were covered by a small apron (mubati), as was considered appropriate at the time for pubescent girls. The work is further distinguished by the fact that it holds only one calabash (in its left hand), as well as by the presence of a child, fi rmly attached to its mother’s back. Mothers with Children The iconographic detail of the child on the Grunwald fi gure illustrates one of Lumbu statuary’s most important themes: the mother and child. There are a number of masterpieces that explore it. One of the most remarkable of them fi rst appears in a book by Werner Schmalenbach published in 1953.20 The piece is a phemba in the “classical” style (fi g. 15): The child, carried on the right, touches its mother’s breast and gazes in the same direction that she
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