Ethnographica & Tribal Art

Last October, South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, London hosted an exhibition of artworks in the image of, and inspired by, Nelson Mandela.

In the islands of the Pacific, where hardwood trees were abundant and iron virtually non-existent until the 19th century, the fighting club was elevated to an art form – made in a wider variety of forms and with more lavish decoration than any other weapon.

To great publicity last November Martel Maides of Guernsey sold a collection of Fijian cannibal forks for close to £30,000. They were the property of a local collector, who had bought them privately in the North Midlands three or four decades ago – the same vendor who entered an Aboriginal parrying shield to the auctioneer’s sale last month with hopes of £3000-4000.

He may have conquered much of Europe, but time waits for no man, as Napoleon found out on May 5, 1821.

The multitude of television shows devoted to antiques are rarely popular with the antiques trade as a whole – in a well-worn argument some credit them with the disintegration of the dealing community itself – but auctioneers are ready participants both for the publicity and the prospect of a decent consignment.

Around ten pieces of tribal art consigned from a private collection are to be auctioned in Cuttlestones’ mixed-discipline sale in Penkridge, Staffordshire, on May 25.

Soon after the gallery doors close at the BRUNEAF fair in Brussels on June 10 all eyes turn to Paris where Christie’s and Sotheby’s will hold major African and Oceanic sales on succeeding days.

AUCTIONEER Martin Lawrence of Petersfield firm Jacobs & Hunt was not expecting much when asked to conduct a probate valuation in a top-floor council flat in a rundown part of Southsea.

A KENT auction house has withdrawn a sacred Aboriginal artefact from sale after intervention from cultural experts and the Australian High Commission.

A ROW has erupted after another attempt by South American interests to intervene in a tribal art sale in Paris.

Just days after Sotheby’s announced the sale of a 16th century ivory mask and five other works from the Kingdom of Benin, the auctioneers said they have been withdrawn.

IN London on February 17, Sotheby's will sell a rediscovered 16th century Benin ivory mask – and five other rare works from the Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria – consigned by the family of a key participant in the controversial Punitive Expedition. The mask alone is estimated at £3.5m-4.5m.

CONFIRMING their intentions in the Australian market, Bonhams have launched an Aboriginal art department in Sydney.

THIS late 18th/early 19th century Native American ball-head club made a house record when it sold for £33,000 at Charles Ross auctioneers in Woburn, Bedfordshire.

FOR the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island, wooden dance paddles known simply as Rapa were essential to many ceremonies and dances.

FOUR centuries of contact with the North American continent – exploration, trade, settlement, war and missionary activity – mean that, just occasionally, spectacular Native American art objects are found in the United Kingdom.

TRIBAL Art seems to one area bucking the credit crunch at present. Witness this superbly-patinated Shona hardwood headrest that was unearthed by South Down Auctioneers of Midhurst, West Sussex in a local home.

PRE-COLOMBIAN art valued at €5m in total was withdrawn from sale in Paris on September 12 after the last-minute intervention of the Mexican Embassy.

Munich auctioneers Hermann Historica are known internationally as experts for arms and armour, medals and historical collectibles rather than tribal art, so they were on unfamiliar territory with lot 3324 in their latest blockbuster sale held from May 2 to 11.

In 1862, the English missionary Father William Duncan brought around 70 Tsimshian Christian converts to an abandoned Native village and established a model Church of England mission settlement at Metlakatla in Northern British Columbia.