The Lega and the Bembe simply do not have sculpted headrests while
the Luba and other cultural groups do – although they are very rarely
made of ivory, and never have the circle-dot design ornamentation.
To find a cultural equivalent, which would at least combine several
aesthetic and symbolic characteristics of both areas, one would thus
have to look to a cultural intermediary zone between the Luba and
the Lega – that of the Zimba for example, who, as Marc Felix has
very rightly said “have one foot in the Luba world and the other in
the Lega world.”
In the entire Luba world, and in the broadest sense of the term,
only two ivory neck rests exist – and one of them is Zimba. It is
very well known, often published and was in the Charles Ratton
collection in 1935. It is the ultimate irony that in Sweeney’s catalog
one can take in both of these neck rests at a single glance: as
Ratton’s anthropomorphic one and the one with abstract shapes
that belonged to Louis Carré are shown next to one another on a
double-page illustration. Earlier, destiny had led them to encounter
one another in the same display case, in the company of the famous
Lega mask, at the Sculptures et Objets à la Villa Guibert exhibition in
1933 – which seems to indicate that Louis Carré and Charles Ratton
had somehow confusedly surmised that these objects were brothers
(ill. 4).
Undoubtedly to puzzle African art connoisseurs even more, the
artist who sculpted the Zimba neck rest was more inspired by the
iconography of his western neighbors than by the purity of the
symbolism of Lega and Bembe art – and he decorated it with a
female figure in a style that resembles that of the Eastern Luba.
This extremely rare ivory neck rest, unique in its genre, finds its
place with ease within two distinct stylistic and symbolic universes,
without however identifying completely with either one. This
singularity makes it all the more exceptional, because it is a rarely
equaled harmonious sculptural alliance of the heat that radiates
from the ivory it is made of and the purity of form it displays.
Ill. 4
Display case at the Sculptures et Objets à la Villa
Guibert exhibition in 1933 - Photo DR
In spite of the stylistic connections
between these three ivory works, the
trained eye immediately observes
that the neck rest – with its vertical
and parallel supports and especially
its rectangular and elegantly curved
upper surface – belongs neither to the
sculptural universe of the Lega nor to
that of the Bembe.
In short, what we have here is an object
whose material (ivory) and symbolism
(expressed by its ornamental structure)
appear to belong very clearly to the
Maniema cultural universe, but whose
style and type (a sculpted headrest) are
more reminiscent of the “dream-pillows”
from the Luba cultural area.
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