Rare zoomorphic mask - Luba-Hemba - DR Congo

Rare animal-shaped mask – Bangubangu (Bangu-Bangu) – Democratic Republic of the Congo

Origin: Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa), Maniema province, Kabambare region
Culture / Ethnicity: Bangubangu (Bangu-Bangu) – Luba-Hemba cultural complex
Material: Carved wood, pigments and significant ancient deposits
Support: Work provided with its original presentation base, custom-made.

- An exclusive and richly illustrated catalog accompanies the Wirtz Collection, with a detailed note devoted to each of the works presented. (available on request)

- Unpublished: Dated and signed composition, titled After the Wirtz collection, offering a pictorial evocation of the interior of the collection as it might have been represented in 1965.

Provenance

Former private collection of a member of the Wirtz family, Antwerp (Belgium), a family historically active in the travel sector.

According to information directly transmitted by her heir, this object was reportedly brought back from Congo in the 1960s, then kept within the family.

The family collection was carefully preserved and displayed in a room entirely dedicated to it, arranged in the spirit of a private cabinet of curiosities, where the works were gathered and showcased in an environment specially dedicated to their presentation.

Acquired directly from the heir, with whom this sale is conducted in collaboration.

Description & Study of the Work

Rare zoomorphic mask attributed to the Bangubangu (Bangu-Bangu) from the Kabambare region, in Maniema, within the Luba-Hemba cultural area.

A raw, wild and almost disturbing piece that seeks neither conventional beauty nor seduction: it demands a presence.

The face emerges from a heavy ovoid volume, deliberately stripped, traversed by two deep ocular openings that give the creature a hollow and unsettling gaze. Between them descends a long straight, massive nose, whose face is animated by a succession of deeply incised triangular motifs. This single decorative line is enough to transform the center of the face into a true graphic spine.

But it is especially the mouth that gives the mask its exceptional character.

Open like a cavity, almost a maw, it still retains several sharp teeth protruding. The interior is filled with a dark, thick, irregular substance, mixed with whitish deposits. Taken together, the mask has an astonishingly animal expression: something ferocious, nocturnal, almost carnivorous.

Here, nothing is polished or softened. The surface is deeply marked: patchy pigments, abraded wood, darkened areas, embedded deposits, scratches, old wear and multiple material variations recount the object's long physical existence. These traces are not hidden; they are, on the contrary, an essential part of its aesthetic power.

The contrast between the large remnants of light pigment and the brown-black areas creates an almost mineral skin. Here and there, the wood appears bare; elsewhere, the surface seems saturated with old materials. This heterogeneity gives the mask a presence that restored or artificially uniform surfaces could not reproduce.

The art of the peoples of this Maniema region developed in contact with several neighboring traditions, notably Luba, Hemba, Bembe and Boyo. Groups of zoomorphic masks are documented in this broad cultural area, where animal figures could participate in performances charged with satire, social critique or moral instruction.

This specimen strikes with its integrity and especially with its absolutely uncompromising expression. The hollow gaze, the long scarified nose, the gaping mouth and the still-present teeth compose a figure that seems less to represent a particular animal than to embody an animal presence — instinctive, threatening and almost hallucinatory.

It possesses that extraordinarily difficult-to-reproduce quality: the sense of an object still charged with its history.

A few meters away, its silhouette is intriguing. Up close, the material takes over: one discovers the deposits, reliefs, teeth, cracks, pigments and an entire surface worked by time.

A rare, visceral and intensely expressive work, at the antipodes of a decorative object: a mask that retains something deeply untamed, and whose presence seems almost physical.