CONGO (DRC), KATANGA, Luba culture Standing male anthropomorphic wooden statuette with a nuanced brown patina. Heart-shaped face with half-closed eyes; the hairstyle consists of incised plaits extending to the top of the skull, where they form a large, flared truncated cone-shaped receptacle, hollowed out into a deep cup. The abdomen is adorned with scarification marks. There are piercings in the nostrils and ears, as well as an anal cavity retaining residues; this arrangement is consistent with the ritual practices of this region, where the body’s orifices and the cranial cavity serve to receive magical charges. First third of the 20th century: a statue made of wood and horn, 38 cm tall, from Tanganyika, donated by the Society of Missionaries of Africa and acquired on 19 February 1912 (inv. EO.0.0.6799), whose charged horn is still embedded in the cavity at the top; a 24 cm statuette from the same provenance and acquired on the same date, featuring an abdominal cavity containing a charge (inv. EO.0.0.6800); finally, a 24 cm statuette classified as a cult object with magical powers, acquired on 22 September 1919 (inv. EO.0.0.23113). These three examples all feature the same receptacle hollowed out at the top of the skull and a similar arrangement of the arms, in a scale very close to our own. The typology is also linked to the kabeja-type figures with a receptacle at the top of the skull, studied by François Neyt (La grande statuaire hemba du Zaïre, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1977) and compiled by Bernard de Grunne (Kabeja, la redoutable statuaire des Hemba, Brussels, 2012). Left leg broken and reattached. Crack caused by desiccation. Height: 23 cm. Note: This work is comparable to three Luba statuettes held at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, all collected in Katanga and acquired by the museum before 1920. Provenance: Collection of John van Kessel (Antwerp, 1885), secretary to Louis Franck, Minister for the Colonies (1918–1924), then passed down through the family.