A lime spatula from the Master of Oral Projection. - Lot 124

A lime spatula from the Master of Oral Projection. Harry Beran, the great specialist in the art of the Massim region, in his book Mutuaga has identified ten lime spatulas and eight betel nut mortars from this workshop known as the Master(s) of Oral Projection, which undoubtedly included several sculptors. The lime spatula in the Jean Roudillon collection, collected by Count Festetics de Tolna, is unquestionably at the top of the chain of creation of these works if we compare them, and undoubtedly by the hand of the master. As Harry Beran has noted and written, on the finest examples in the corpus, the projection that joins the bust clearly emerges from the mouth, while on other examples it appears behind the mouth at chin level. It is tempting to interpret this protrusion as a tongue, but according to a Kitava informant, it could be the mucus that emerges from a magician's mouth and nose at the moment of death. It is interesting to note that this protrusion also appears at mouth level, creating a loop with the bust, on a very fine mortar also collected by Count Festectics de Tolna, and deposited by him in the collections of the Budapest Museum of Ethnography (Neprajzi Museum) along with sixteen hundred other objects acquired during this same legendary voyage. The spatula in the Jean Roudillon collection depicts a female subject, with superbly balanced, detailed and precise carving, such as the intertwined fingers of the hands resting on the belly between the umbilicus and the sex, or the ears sculpted in high relief in harmonious volutes. The face is adorned with three-pointed engraved motifs, still filled with lime and characteristic of the corpus, placed under each of the eyes engraved in circles, as well as for the umbilicus like a third eye. The concentric engraved motifs that wrap around the areola of the breasts create another hallucinatory gaze, or hidden animal, and are transposed in the same way to the back at the level of the shoulder blades. In the lower back, another engraved waterline motif undulates. The sculpture's volumes are impressive, its expression as serene as it is ecstatic, its proportions incomparable to most of the corpus, as is its exceptional patina, lacquered and covered with residues of soot patches. A hypnotic masterpiece among masterpieces, published in Le Musée Vivant, it is undoubtedly one of the jewels in the Jean Roudillon collection. Massim, Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, 19th century Hardwood (ebony), pigment, wear and small visible lack on the left arm (old breakage) sublime and old patina of use lacquered with smoke deposits, base by Inagaki in 1942 or 1943 (base unsigned). H. 28 cm See p. 199 in Mutuaga A Nineteeth-Century New Guinea Master Carver, Harry Beran, Ed. The University of Wollongong Press 1996 For a mortar collected by Festetics from the collections of the Budapest Museum of Ethnography, see no. 26 in the catalog for the exhibition Massim, The Museum of Primitive Art, New York 1975. See : L'art Océanien - Sa présence - N° 38 de la Collection "Le Musée Vivant", presented by Madeleine Rousseau, introduction by Paul Rivet and texts by Guillaume Apollinaire and Tristan Tzara, APAM (Association Populaire des Amis du Musée) 1951, reproduced p. 76 fig. 131. Provenance : - Collection of Count Rodolphe Festetics de Tolna, collected by him before 1896. - Collection of Dr. Stéphen Chauvet (acquired at auction in closed cases, without inventory) - Collection of Galerie Le Corneur Roudillon - Jean Roudillon Collection Publications - Le Musée Vivant-L'art Océanien sa présence n° 38 de la Collection Le Musée Vivant , APAM (Association Populaire des Amis du Musée) 1951, reproduced p. 76 fig. 131. - Tribal Art-Le Monde de l'Art Tribal N° 4 December 1994, Spatules à chaux de la région Massim P. Bourgoin, p. 36 fig. 2. - Tribal Art-Le Monde de l'Art Tribal N° 4 Hiver 2003, Dossier " À la rencontre des collectionneurs ", Jean Roudillon : l'histoire de l'œil jusque dans ses murs, PH. Pataud Célérier, p. 88. Exhibition: - Art du Pacifique" Indonesia-Oceania, Galerie Le Corneur Roudillon, 51 rue Bonaparte, Paris, January 24-February 15, 1951. - L'Aristocrate et ses Cannibales Le voyage en Océanie du Comte Festetics de Tolna (1893-1896) at the Musée du Quai Branly, from October 23, 2007 to January 13, 2008.