Lot 50 Dα

It is not known when or from whom Seymour Lazar purchased this old and rare figure. It bears the painted collection number “173” on both the upper chest and on the back of the neck and also the number “56.106” painted in red on the lower right leg.

It bears close similarities to a figure in the collection of Georg Baselitz (Stephan, P. et al., "Baselitz Die Afrika-Sammlung", Munich, 2003, p.145, fig.110) which is said to have arrived in France in 1900. It has the same frontal stance with arms away from the body, small conical breasts and identical inlays in the eyes. The Baselitz figure has traditionally been attributed to the Nyamwezi but Gary Van Wyk has cast doubt on this attribution (see Wyck, G., (Ed.), "Shangaa: Art of Tanzania", New York, 2013, p.256) pointing out features which it shares with a female figure in the British Museum collected by Dr Hugh Stannus Stannus at Blantyre in present-day southern Malawi and donated to the museum in 1909 (Phillips, T.(Ed.), "Africa: The Art of a Continent", London, 1995, p.168, fig.2.58c). The row of scorched circles on the chest is also reminiscent of a figure collected by Brosig which entered the Berlin Ethnological Museum in 1898 and is attributed to the Sagara (Felix, M. et al., "Tanzania: Meisterwerke Afrikanischer Skulptur", Munich, 1994, pp.118-9).