Apollo Magazine

Pick of the fair: Bernard de Grunne

TEFAF Maastricht 2017 | Large Sawos totemic figures such as this were hung on cult houses and dwellings to represent powerful ancestral forces

Male ancestor figure (detail; c. 1790), Sepik River region, New Guinea. Bernard de Grunne, around €1m

Male ancestor figure (detail; c. 1790), Sepik River region, New Guinea. Bernard de Grunne, around €1m

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Male ancestor figure (c. 1790) , Sepik River region, New Guinea

This exceptional piece was made by the Sawos people of the Middle Sepik River region of New Guinea. Such large totemic figures, were hung on cult houses and dwellings, to represent powerful, and not necessarily benign, ancestral forces.

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