FEATURE 120 FIG. 17 (left): Standing fi gure. Lumbu, Gabon. Wood, pigment. H: 43.2 cm. Collected by Guy Montbarbon during the 1960s. Ex Aaron Furman, New York; Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall and William B. Jaffe. Bernard Dulon Collection, Paris. Photo © Hughes Dubois. FIG. 18 (above): Portrait of a woman with a kodia coiffure. Author’s photo. All rights reserved. FIG. 19 (upper right): Photo by Fr. Padron, Postcard: guardian of a small temple with basket reliquaries. Author’s photo. All rights reserved. Postcard inscribed: Missions des Pères du St-Esprit—Congo Français. Le fétiche Mbouiti près de Loango (au Congo, il est interdit aux femmes de voir ce fétiche sous peine de mort). Missions of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit—French Congo. The fetish Mbouiti near Loango (in Congo, it is forbidden for women to see this fetish upon pain of death). FIG. 20 (right): Reliquary fi gure. Lumbu, Gabon. Wood, pigment, basketry, fi ber, relics. H: 65.5 cm. Ex Michel Huguenin; Alain de Monbrison; Hubert Goldet. Image from the auction catalog Arts Primitifs, Collection Hubert Goldet, 30 June–1 July 2001, lot 269. does. The object bears a certain resemblance to a fi gure in the Marceau Rivière Collection (fi g. 14), which has a small cavity in its abdomen for a power charge. All that remains of the child’s body are its two beautiful hands, delicately placed on its mother’s back, and its two rounded feet. Not only are these two fi gures similar in size (33 and 35.5 centimeters), but they both have the same helmet-like coiffure with a central tress, the same facial traits, and identical hands with a separated thumb. They share so many details of execution in common —as they also do with a fl ywhisk (mutsyeetsi), traditionally an emblem of power (fi gs. 13a and b) —that they can be assumed all to be the creations of a single master carver. Usually sculpted onto the back of a female fi gure, the child is sometimes seen clinging to its mother’s abdomen. This is the case for a fi gure (fi g. 16) that is just as remarkable as those mentioned above. Currently in private hands, having been the property of William Brill and featured in the Clair-Obscur exhibition produced by Parisian Galerie Schoffel-Valluet in 2008, this mother with child is small (only 25 centimeters high) and has closed coffee bean-
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