Effigy of the primordial ancestor Nàbo Ngbaka people, Ubangi region, D.R. Congo Hardwood with dark patina, metal jewellery Height: 61 cm. Provenance : Lucien Van de Velde Collection, Antwerp, 1970 Hans Van Witteloostuijn Collection, Delft Marc and Alain de Monbrison, Paris, 1978 Philippe Guimiot, Brussels, 1994 Private collection Publications and exhibitions : Marc et Alain de Monbrison, African Arts, 1978, vol. XII, n°1 Philippe Guimiot, African Arts, 1994, vol. XXVII, n°4 Philippe Guimiot, Arts Primitifs IV, Brussels, 1994, n° 22 Jan-Ludwig Grootaers, Ubangi, 2007, Plate IV, no. 10, p. 195 Bassani and Pezzoli, Ex Africa, Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna, 2019, no. II. 21, p. 179 NÀBO, feet firmly on the ground... The Ubangian peoples of the Ngbaka cultural area never represented their clan ancestors, but obsessively sculpted effigies of the primordial couple Sèto and his sister-wife Nàbo, to whom they owed their very existence. These statuettes protected their owners and were invoked to solve many ills such as illness, sterility, unsuccessful hunts and crops. According to territorial agent Ronse, Nàbo alone was called upon in cases of female nervous illness[1]. It is difficult to discuss the works of the Ubangi cultural area (north-western D.R. Congo, southern Sudan, Central African Republic), so much so that they escape the canons of classical aesthetics with their apparent freedom of execution and prodigious creativity. Sometimes, with simple sketches carved from living trees, this art form has been considered to be one of mastered clumsiness, yet many of the most outstanding works of pre-writing peoples come from the Ubangi. The various indigenous styles are sometimes difficult to differentiate, as is often the case when the essential field information required to discover a work is lacking. For example, our effigy, historically considered to be by an Ngbaka artist, was recently attributed to the workshop of a sculptor from their Manza neighbours[2]. Standing tall on wide feet and sturdy legs, Nàbo is given a particularly vigorous treatment in this sculpture. Her torso, with its arms clasped to her body, supports a massive head with a forward-projected face, and a vertical band on her forehead depicting the customary scarification marks. The work's facetted, guilloché surface bears witness to particularly meticulous execution for a work so powerful and archaic that it seems to come straight from the protohistory of humanity. It lacerates the overly narrow canons of classical aesthetics and proclaims health as a value superior to beauty[3], long before the artists of modernity, from Cézanne and Van Gogh to de Kooning and Basquiat, not forgetting, of course, Picasso. So it's hardly surprising that, right from the start of the Western world's discovery of African art, Picasso, Khanweiler, Georges de Miré, Charles Ratton, Paul Chadourne and so many other collectors were keen to acquire an Ubangi sculpture[4]. Bernard Dulon Condition report: The work has numerous traces on its surface corollary to its ritual use and age. Restoration of the front of the right foot [1] Grootears, 2007, p. 124 [2] Grootears, 2007, p. 174 [3] Bruno Gay, Le petit chien de Corneille Agrippa, in Lumières Noires, Tanlay, 1997. [4] However, the art of the region's peoples was not mapped until much later, with the publication of Jan-Ludwig Grootears's encyclopaedic work Ubangi, art et cultures au cœur de l'Afrique in 2007.