ƒ STATUS, BIOMA A BIOMA FIGURE ERA RIVER REGION,... Lot 38

ƒ STATUS, BIOMA A BIOMA FIGURE ERA RIVER REGION, WAPO RIVER, GULF OF PAPUAZIA, PAUASIENNE- GUINEA At the back, a handwritten annotation by Paul Wirz: Pioma Df. Yase Era-Delta. Height: 40 cm. (15¾ in.) US$33,000-54,000 PROVENANCE Acquired in situ by Paul Wirz (1892-1955), in 1930 Maria Wyss, Basel, acquired in 1972 Collection Veena and Peter Schnell, Zurich Sotheby's, Paris, 5 December 2003, lot 243 Private American collection, acquired at this sale EXHIBITION New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art of the Papuan Gulf, 24 October - 2 December 2007 BIBLIOGRAPHY Welsch, R.L. et al, Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art and Society in the Papuan Gulf of New Guinea, Washington, D.C., 2006, p. 70, no. 116 There are two types of agiba or bioma fgures, which are perfectly interchangeable in the Wapo, Era and Uruma areas: one type depicts the simple silhouette of a wingspan, the other evokes the superposition of two figures with their arms simultaneously raised and stretched down. Our copy belongs to this second category. The wingspan, with two pairs of arms and legs, is a reference to the myth of Irivake, the sky spirit that controls lightning (for a discussion of this, see Lewis-Harris, J., Art of the Papuan Gulf, Bulletin (St. Louis Art Museum), 1996, vol. 22, No. 1, p. 22). The superimposition of several fgures is here suggested by the presence of three "navels" aligned on the median axis of the sculpture. For an almost identical fgure, see the one in the collection of the Museum der Kulturen in Basel, inv. no. V. 7868, reproduced in Wirz, P., Beiträge zur Ethnographie des Papua-Golfes, Britisch-Neuguinea, Abhandlungen und Berichte der Museen für Tierkunde und Völkerkunde zu Dresden, vol. XIX, Dresden, 1934, pl. XX, fg. 8, attributed by P. Wirz to the Wapo river area. To bid, please visit the