Statuary and masks

Statuary and masks are the field collectors consult most. They demand a trained eye, because neighbouring styles are distinguished by details that only comparison makes legible.

The main groups

• Bangwa (Grassfields, Cameroon): royal statuary, commemorative figures and maternity figures. The first piece in Edith Mbella’s personal collection is a Bangwa maternity figure.
• Fang (Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, southern Cameroon): reliquary figures and masks, with tightly controlled volumes.
• Kota (Gabon, Congo): reliquary figures covered with brass or copper sheets.
• Teke (Congo, DRC): figures with a magical charge, and masks.
• Songye (DRC): powerful figures and masks of the kifwebe society.
• Luba (DRC): caryatid stools, staffs of office, lukasa memory boards.

What is examined

For a statue: proportions, posture, treatment of volumes, scarification, added elements, cavity, base, restorations. For a mask: form, perforations, traces of fixing, polychromy, interior wear.

Each detail is set against reference corpora. A piece that looks coherent from a distance may reveal, up close, a modern workmanship, a late assembly or a heavy restoration: our method explains how.

The most frequent pitfalls

• Recent copies artificially aged.
• Authentic pieces heavily restored or “completed”.
• Composite pieces assembling elements from different objects.
• Pieces produced for the market from the colonial era onward, sometimes of real quality, but whose function is not the same.

A piece made for the market is not without interest: it simply deserves to be described for what it is. Each file is presented with the owner’s consent, as an anonymised sheet.

Value and market

Value depends on plastic quality, age, provenance and condition. See valuation. For a broader framework: Central African ritual art and the encyclopedia.