FIG. 11 (below):
Charles Ratton, c. 1935.
Photo, Studio Harcourt, Paris.
FIG. 12 (above):
Label from Durville
Collections.
Image courtesy of Bruno Claessens.
FIG. 13 (left):
Dr. Gaston Durville, 1930.
Still from the fi lm Physiopolis
by George O’Messerly and Jean
Dréville, 1930.
115
The sculpture resurfaced in 1989 at a Loudmer
auction in Paris. The only provenance listed
is Durville, though he is not indicated as the
consigner, so it may have passed through other
hands in the interim.24 It was sold here with an
estimate of 100,000–200,000 FF, not a trivial
amount at the time, and dropped out of sight
again25 until 2003, when it was offered again
at Sotheby’s in New York. This time it had its
full provenance and a detailed write-up by Louis
Perrois, who speculates that the sculpture
could have been a reliquary guardian fi gure or
perhaps, as noted on the old label on the bottom,
the fi nial of a men’s house post, akon. It
nearly doubled its $50,000–100,000 estimate,
confi rming the ongoing popularity of this early
“Pahouine goddess.” The collection she entered
at this time is doubtless just one more stop on
her ongoing itinerary of world travel.
With thanks to Susan Kloman of Christie’s and Alexander
Grogan of Sotheby’s for their aid with this
article, and to Jim Ross, without whose remarkable
archive of early illustrations of African art
(rossarchive.library.yale.edu) this project would
have been considerably more diffi cult.
NOTES
1. Clements R. Markham (ed.), The Geographical Magazine,
vol. 2, July 1, 1875, p. 222.
2. The fi rst may have been Andrew Battell in the late 16th/
early 17th century. See E. G. Ravenstein, The Strange
Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh, in Angola and
adjoining regions, The Hakluyt Society, London, 1901.
3. K. David Patterson, “Early Knowledge of the Ogowe River
and the American Exploration of 1854.” The International
Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, 1972,
p. 77.
4. Ibid., p. 88.
5. de Compiégne, L’Afrique Équatoriale, 2 vols., Paris: Plon et
Cie, 1875.
6. Markham 1875 op. cit., p. 95.
7. It is noted on the title page opposite that Louis Breton’s
engravings for the book are “after photos and sketches by
the Marquis de Compiègne” (de Compiégne, op. cit.).
8. See Alfred Marche, Luçon et Palaouan, Libraire Hachette et
Co., Paris, 1887.
9. Alfred Marche, “Voyage au Gabon et sur le fl euve
Ogooué, 1875–1877.” Le Tour du Monde: Nouveau
Journal des Voyages, vol. XXXVI, no. 936e liv.,
Librarie Hachette, Paris, 1878, p. 438. The same plate
appears again in Marche’s Trois voyages dans l’Afrique
Occidentale: Sénégal - Gambie - Casamance - Gabon –
Ogooué, Librarie Hachette, Paris, 1879, p. 376.
10. Louis Perrois, Patrimoines du Sud, Collections du Nord,
ORSTOM, 1997, p. 126.
11. Auction house professional, personal communication.
12. Sotheby’s sale catalog, sale NO7842, 14 November 2003,
lot 65, pp. 66–67, with essay by Louis Perrois. The notes in
this catalog served as a jumping-off point for this essay.
13. Ibid.
14. It is interesting to note that the Breton engraving shows
the leg on the other side. This is the result of the engraving
process, which creates a mirror image when printed unless
this is specifi cally compensated for.
15. K. David Patterson, “Paul B. Du
Chaillu and the Exploration of Gabon,
1855–1865.” The International Journal
of African Historical Studies, vol. 7, no.
4, 1974, pp. 647–667.
16. Laure Cynthia Mboyi Moukanda,
doctoral thesis,
“La pratique des échanges
commerciaux dans la societé
précoloniale du Gabon : XVIe–XIVe
siécles,” Université Michel de
Montaigne Bordeaux 3, 2013.
17. Catalog for Loudmer sale, Paris, 29
June 1989, lot 393.
18. Roland Kaehr, Louis Perrois, and Marc
Ghysels, “A Masterwork that Sheds
Tears … and Light: A Complementary
Study of a Fang Ancestral Head.”
African Arts. 40, 2007, pp. 44–57.
19. Michael Mbadinga, “L’organisation
territoriale au Gabon : entre mythe et
realite,” Annales de l’University Omar
Bongo, no. 15: 25, 2010, p. 27.
20. Sotheby’s 2003, op. cit.
21. Ibid.
22. An Nbaka fi gure that he is known to
have acquired at auction in late 1931
bears the inventory number 7553.
Sotheby’s sale catalog, sale NO9225,
11 November 2014, lot 119.
23. Durville’s interests were wide ranging,
as can be seen in the catalog for the sale of his remaining
collection. See catalog of Lasseron & Associés, Paris, 30
May 2007.
24. Loudmer 1989, op. cit.
25. Jim Ross, in his notes about the piece, posits that the
“European collector” who consigned the piece may have
been American dealer Aaron Furman, who was then living
in Portugal. See http://raai.library.yale.edu/site/index.
php?globalnav=image_detail&image_id=241. He is not
alone in this speculation.
A PAHOUINE GODDESS
/(rossarchive.library.yale.edu
/index