POLYCHROME CUBISTIC MALE FIGURE - Figure - Congo

Old male polychrome figure of the Kela people living in Comgo.
Ex collection of a former curator of the Africa Museum in Lubumbashi.
Now in my private Dutch collection.

The figurine shows evident signs of having been used for a while in a ritual context before it was collected, this would date it from the beginning of the 20th century.
The artist decided to anoint each plane with a contrasting color. We thus find white and red planes. The man's face is in the shape of a truncated lozenge rhomboid and is completely dividend by a sharp vertical edge representing the nose.
Almond shaped eyes. Mouth as a simple strip. Hunched shoulders.
Some Kela sculpturen May have been in the possesion of diviners, ekata, whose most notable rolex was to trace sorcerers.
A black wooden base comes with the piece.