FEATURE
Luluwa people’s involvement in the long-distance
112
trade. However, largely based on feedback
I have received from art historian and anthropologist
Rik Ceyssens, a specialist of the cultures
and arts of the Kasai region who served on my
dissertation committee, I am now less convinced
of this assumed chronology as a refl ection of the
emergence in the nineteenth century of a societal
distinction between commoners and nobles.
Instead, I believe that both style categories, and
the functional differences they possibly refl ect,
have always occurred simultaneously and are
expressions of what one might label popular or
folk art, on the one hand, and court or elite art,
on the other.
That said, continuing a trend already noted by
Albert Maesen in the mid 1950s, when I traveled
in Luluwaland in the mid 1990s, traditional or
so-called historical art had almost entirely disappeared.
Obviously, this situation complicates
any attempt to reconstruct the functions and
meanings of works of art that are preserved in
Western collections after having been removed
from their African homelands more than fi fty
years ago. This is one of the reasons why I
hope that my publication will be welcomed as
a valuable document about Luluwa art and related
practices and beliefs that, regrettably, now
belong to the past.
Luluwa: Central African Art between Heaven and Earth
By Constantine Petridis
Published in English and French editions by Fonds Mercator,
Brussels, 2018
240 pages, 29.7 x 24.5 cm, more than 200 illustrations
ISBN: 9789462302143 (English edition)
Hardcover, 79.95 euros
FIG. 20 (left):
Two masked dancers,
Kayemba Mbanda and
Katukonki wa Tshabu, with
their custodian, before a
performance in the village
of Kapinga Kamba, August
1994.
Photo © Constantine Petridis.
Though the headpieces and
costumes of both these masks are
reminiscent of the better-studied
Tshokwe mask traditions, the
composite, non-wooden male mask
called Kayemba Mbanda appears
to be a creation specifi c to an
artist and his workshop among the
Bashila Kasanga subgroup of the
Luluwa that has been documented
in historical fi eld photographs dating
back to the 1930s.
FIG. 21 (above):
Helmet mask.
Luluwa, Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
Wood, pigment, metal. H: 34.9 cm.
Ex Merton Simpson, New York,
USA, by June or July 1959; Werner
Muensterberger, USA; Sotheby’s,
New York, 11 May 2012.
Private collection.
Photo: © Sotheby’s/Art Digital
Studio.
One of several seemingly unique
Luluwa masks, this impressive
helmet mask has facial decoration
rendered in high relief that recalls
a number of Luluwa fi gures. It can
be compared with other rare helmet
masks associated with leadership
and investiture and funerary rituals
among neighboring peoples, such as
the Luntu, Kuba, and Eastern Pende.
FIG. 22 (above right):
Face mask.
Luluwa, Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
Wood, pigment, metal, fi ber, beads.
H: 27 cm.
Reportedly fi eld acquired by M. Van
Baelen, Belgium, early 1900s.
Ex Christie’s, Paris, 16 June 2009;
Alain de Monbrison, Paris, France.
Private collection, Belgium.
Photo © Christie’s Images Limited.
In terms of provenance and style,
this painted face mask is closely
related to examples observed and
acquired in Luluwa country in the
early 1900s by Leo Frobenius and
others that are now preserved in
museums in Hamburg and Tervuren.