INSCRIPTIONS
127
procreation. However, some scholars
have suggested that round striated
Luba masks were also used in the
activities of an association known
as Bukasandji, or Kazanzi, the
main purpose of which was the
elimination of sorcery as the source
of misfortune and death.
FIG. 16 (above):
Sketch by Frans M.
Olbrechts of the ex-White
Fathers, ex-White mask
currently in the Seattle Art
Museum.
MAS | Museum aan de Stroom,
Antwerp.
© Collectiebeleid Musea en Erfgoed,
Antwerp.
FIG. 15 (left):
Mask.
Luba, DR Congo.
Wood, pigment. H: 44 cm.
Ex White Fathers, Antwerp (1908
to 1961); Marcel Lemaire, Brussels;
Henri Kamer, New York (by 1962);
Katherine Coryton White, Cleveland,
Los Angeles, and Seattle (1962 to
1980).
Seattle Art Museum, gift of
Katherine White and the Boeing
Company, inv. 81.17.869. Photo: ©
Seattle Art Museum.
Among the Luba people, masks that
are used in the Bwadi bwa Kifwebe
association refer to water and
benevolent actions, and they play a
benefi cent role in both secular and
ritual contexts. Originally, a round
female mask, like this example,
would have danced along with an
oblong or hourglass-shaped male
counterpart. The white color of
the masks’ stripes evokes positive
connotations of nourishment and
and Allen F. Roberts in their various publications
on Luba art, copper was applied to objects
connoting rank and power because it was a sign
of riches resulting from trade (e.g., Roberts and
Roberts 1996; Roberts and Roberts 2007). The
staff would originally have terminated in an iron
spike on the bottom, also a sign of the kingdom’s
wealth and power. Along with intricate body
scarifi cations, elaborate coiffures are marks of
beauty. However, since the staff also operates as
a spirit receptacle, these corporeal enhancements
at once help to attract the spirit and to hold it
within the sculpture.
Also included in the above-mentioned Sotheby’s
auction in Paris on 24 June 2015 as lot 65 is
a bowl-bearing fi gure in a style attributed to the
Songye (fi g. 19). To my knowledge only a handful
of other examples of this unusual genre are currently
known. The fi gure was presented at the Sotheby’s
auction with a long list of previous owners,
including the mention that it was probably
once in the Linden-Museum Stuttgart. However,
rather than referring to the Linden-Museum, the
inscription “668./HE.24.” without question testifi
es to the fi gure’s inclusion in Kongo-kunst (fi g.
17). This is verifi ed in a sketch by Olbrechts (fi g.
18). The letters “HE” were used by Olbrechts
and his team to identify objects owned by Gaston
Heenen, former governor-general of the Belgian
Congo, who was a serious collector of Congolese
art and a key lender to the Antwerp exhibition.
Whether or not the old, typed tag reading “B 40
Bettler-Schale. Songe-Lulua. Kongo/Afrika” on
the sculpture pertains to its one-time association
with the Linden-Museum—before or after it
became Heenen’s property—remains to be confi
rmed but is not impossible. However, the former
governor-general seems to have acquired most of
his African art while he was stationed in the Congo.
Another bowl-bearing fi gure among Heenen’s
loans to the exhibition was a Luba sculpture that
the Cleveland Museum of Art acquired in 2010
from the René and Odette Delenne Collection
(fi gs. 20 and 21).
The typology of the Songye bowl bearer suggests
the infl uence of the neighboring Luba culture.
Indeed, while the theme of the bowl- or
cup-bearing seated fi gure is of central importance
in the Luba art corpus, it is an infrequent
occurrence in the Songye world. And while most