A Maro painting - Lot 131

A Maro painting Paintings on maro bark were once made by elderly women (or, a priori, women of a certain age), and are generally painted with curvilinear motifs, waves and volutes inside a frame, and with stylized flowers and plants, figures, birds, lizards and fish, which also recur frequently. Painted motifs can also be found outside the frame, as is the case here with this bizarre chameleon, reminiscent of another painted on a maro collected in Tobati in Humboldt Bay by Jacques Viot, then donated to the Musée de l'Homme in 1930 by Pierre Loeb and now in the collections of the Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac (inv.71.1930.48.1). Humboldt Bay, Irian Jaya, West New Guinea Bark and pigments. 153 x 92 cm approx. 111.5 x 172.5 cm for the frame. See p. 127 n° 47 for the maro collected by Jacques Viot in the Musée du Quai Branly collections in Ancestors of the Lake Art of Lake Sentani and Humboldt Bay, Ed. The Menil Collection Houston & Yale University Press, 2011 Provenance: - Probably collected by Jacques Viot - Jean Roudillon Collection