Specifications

• Height: 37 cm
• Material: wood
• Position: squatting
• Gender: male
• Indigenous name: korwar
• Price realised: € 8.500,- hp

Provenance

Adrianus Egbert Willem de Jong (1882-1966) army officer, since his retirement in 1933 owner of the Indonesian restaurant Tampat Senang where most of the ethnographic objects he collected in Indonesia before 1933 were put on show; private collection Voorschoten; Venduehuis der Notarissen, The Hague 19-11-2020, lot 836.

Publications

Additional information

A large Biak-style ancestor figure with a stick-type amulet on his back. As far as we know this is the only example published with this feature. The first protestant missionaries in this area (Ottow & Geissler 1857) noticed the habit of wearing an amulet on the back i the Doreh Bay. Doreh Bay was frequented and partly colonised by Biak people. Probably this habit was spread accross the Cenderawasih Bay until the early 1900s. It should be noticed that the price realised is in no case a match for its cultural value.

Photo credits

Venduehuis der Notarissen, The Hague