A 19th century "Uli" Ancestral Figure, Mandak people
Leipzig Museum nr. - Me 10897 -
collected in Mesi, New Ireland, former Bismarck Archipelago
Wood, pigments, Turban snail (Turbo petholatus) opercula, fiber
122 cm
Uli figures were central to complex funerary cycles in New Ireland. The majority of these sculptures were collected during the period that it was under German control.They were only collected during a brief period because the making of these statues were replaced in the early 20th century by new rites, discontinuing the use of these Ulis.
Unlike the single use of works of art made for Malanggan ceremonies, Uli figures were carefully preserved and reused many times. They served to honor and commemorate important society members that show the qualities of strength and power considered to be male, and at the same time the nourishment considered to be maternal.
This particular Uli figure was collected in 1911 by Captain Karl Nauer (1874-1962), a Northern German Lloyd Captain and an ethnographic collector who was stationed in the SOuth Pacific from 1903 to 1913. This figure was subsequently sent by Nauer to the Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig in 1913.
Nauer was an important member of the colonial community in German New Guinea. He exported well over 3,000 artifacts from the Pacific while serving, and many of these objects can now be found, not only in the museums in Bremen and Leipzig, but most important ethnographic museums and collections across the world.
Provenienz
Collected in situ by Karl Nauer as captain of the “Sumatra” in 1911.
Grassi Museum, Leipzig Museum in 1913
Everett Rassiga, New York & Budapest
Sotheby's London Juni 1981 Lot 78
Galerie Margot Ostheimer, Frankfurt
Private collection Dr.W.Wiegand,
Literaturhinweise
referenced in Beaulieu, Jean Phillipe "ULI: Powerful Ancestors from the Pacific", Belgium 2021; Figure U5-38