Lot 182 D α

Although the owner informs us that this carving came from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, the accession number, "G216", inscribed on the back does not appear to correspond to the museum's accession register. The museum does not hold an Oceanic collection today, but a number of items from the Bismarck Archipelago were transferred from its collection to the Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg, in the 1950s.

Cf. Kelm, H., "Kunst vom Sepik", vol.III, Berlin, 1698, fig.253, for a similar carving in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, collected if the village of Mubuanum during the Sepik Expedition of 1912/13. Another can be seen hanging on the wall of Arthur Speyer's home in Berlin Wilmersdorf in 1924 (Schindlbeck, M., "Gefunden und verloren : Arthur Speyer, die dreissiger Jahre und die verluste der Sammlung südsee des ethnologischen Museums Berlin", Berlin, 2012, p.109, fig.52 and p.114, fig.56). Other examples were collected by Margaret Mead on the Yuat River in 1933 (Museum of Natural History, New York inventory nos. 80.0/8275 and 80.0/8277). Ernest Wauchope collected a group of similar carvings in the 1930s which are now in the Australian Museum. He recorded a number of uses for such carvings. Small carvings of the type were described as "fish charms" and larger ones are said to have been used for dancing during initiation, "paraded" in front of initiates, and also placed at fishing traps.