Lot 182 D α

The geographic origin of this mysterious form of club has been the subject of much speculation.

Six other clubs of the type are known to us; two in the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, one in the Musée d'Angoulême, one in the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin, and two others in private collections.

One of the two examples in the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac was donated by the heirs of André Vayson de Pradenne (1888-1939), the ethnologist and appears to be the one formerly in the collection of Antony Innocent Moris, known as “Père Moris” (1866- 1951) which can be seen hanging on the wall in Moris's apartment in one of the famous photographs taken in the early years of the 20th century. The second club in Paris was donated by Félix Mouton and has an old label suggesting a New Britain provenance. The Angoulême club was donated by Dr Jules Lhomme (1857-1934), a doctor of La Rochefoucauld whose large and varied ethnographic collection was formed in the third quarter of the 19th century. It is not known where he acquired his artefacts and he is not known to have travelled to Africa or the Pacific. The Berlin club was collected by Jules-Édouard Moriceau, colonial administrator and head of Native Affairs in New Caledonia from 1875 to 1897. In 1896 he was appointed head of the 4th administrative district - Hienghène-Touho-Koné-Témala - on the west coast of the island. His large collection of New Caledo- nian artefacts was acquired by the Umlauff Museum in Hamburg and would eventually be dispersed among museums in Berlin, Stuttgart and Chicago.

The strong links that all the above-listed clubs have with France suggests they originated in an area of strong French influence. The Moriceau provenance would suggest a New Caledonia origin and two early publications reinforce this hypothesis. A plate in La Billardière's Atlas of 1800 is entitled Effets des Sauvages de la Nouvelle Calédonie and depicts a club with very similar head but with curious fibre binding to the shaft and the typical cylindrical butt found on the majority of New Caledonia clubs. An engraving in Jules Patouillet, Trois ans en Nouvelle-Calédonie, 1873, depicts a club very similar to the present lot with central ridge and bevelled upper rim to the head and the same flared butt.

Detail of plate entitled: Effets des Sauvages de la Nouvelle Calédonie, from La Billardière's Atlas, 1800

Detail of engraving from Jules Patouillet, Trois ans en Nouvelle-Calédonie, 1873