Statue - Zande - DR Congo

Ancient statue – Zande – Democratic Republic of the Congo

A presence-sculpture, raw and uncompromising, heir to the early generations of Zande art.

This ancient Zande statue, with powerful naturalism and deliberately Brutalist edges, stands out for a rare formal approach: solid volumes, direct proportions, absence of superfluous decorative detail. Everything here is about presence, restrained tension, and ritual effectiveness. This type of aesthetics, often described as primitive in the noble sense of the term, recalls the early generations of Zande sculpture where form takes precedence over ornament.

Coherent context and provenance

The sculpture was retrieved in the early 1960s from the widow of a ship captain, a plausibly believable context in light of Congo’s history at that time.
At the dawn of independence (1960), the ports of Boma and Matadi, true gateways to and from the Congo, were major transit points for maritime officers, river and sea navigation companies, as well as technical and administrative personnel linked to commerce and river transport on the Congo.

It is not uncommon for ship captains, in office for several years along the river or coastal routes, to have acquired objects in situ, either through exchange or by direct purchase from local populations or regional intermediaries. In this context, a collection made at the mouth of the Congo River, between Boma and Matadi, fits a credible and well-documented historical reality.

Dating and stylistic reading

Although collected in the 1960s, the statue itself is clearly older and can reasonably be dated to at least the first half of the 20th century, or even earlier.
The deep patina, the uniform wear of the volumes, and the radical simplification of forms all argue for an object that experienced prolonged use, likely in a ritual or domestic setting with strong symbolic charge.

The style, both naturalistic and frontal, recalls certain ancient Zande sculptures associated with protection, mediation, or the representation of ancestors or spirits. It is precisely these exceptional works, unpolished and sometimes almost unsettling, that captivate today’s discerning collectors and connoisseurs of so-called “first generation” art.

This statue thus fits into a demanding corpus, valued for its authenticity, formal radicalism, and distance from later or tourist productions.

Presentation of our expert house

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We regularly assist with liquidations, successions, and dispersals of collections, in collaboration with individuals and families in Belgium and neighboring countries. Our approach is rigorous, transparent, and accessible, with many sales offered without reserve prices.

Some pieces that have passed through our hands have joined international private collections and, for some, museum institutions.

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