Out & About Autumn 2018

Out&About antiques

National

treasures The fascination with tribal art is a growing area but, says THOMAS PLANT, beware the illegal traders and the dos and don’ts of buying and selling these much sought-after items

T ribal Art refers to the traditional art of indigenous natives which was often ceremonial or religious in nature and can be traced way back to examples such as rock paintings in caves 70,000 years ago. Many examples have been destroyed over time, as well as having been acquired by explorers on their numerous voyages of discovery. In the 18th century, anthropologists began acquiring and studying items from places such as the Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand, Africa, native America and South America. One of the key figureheads from the early days was Joseph Banks, the English botanist who travelled to Tahiti with Captain Cook on his first voyage to the South Pacific in 1768. It was Banks who employed two artists to go with them – Alexander Buchan, to record the landscapes and people, and Sydney Parkinson to depict the flora and fauna. Although both men died on the voyage, their presence demonstrated the need for artists to be part of the speciality teams to record the ways of life in faraway lands. While he was there, Banks immersed himself in the culture and way of life of the locals – a science now referred to as ethnology. He returned from the voyage with a huge amount of knowledge, as well as artefacts such as Maori weapons and Tahitian chiefs’ headdresses, as well as the original drawings by the artists that had accompanied them. Several of Parkinson’s drawings can be seen today in the Natural History Museum in London.

The appointment of these artists led to official Admiralty artists being employed on Cook’s future voyages and he later commissioned George Stubbs to paint unique portraits of a kangaroo and a dingo, based on specimens, drawings and descriptions brought back. This area of collecting is going from strength to strength and there are collectors all over the world who seek pieces from all corners of the globe. Examples are hugely varied and interesting, such as African ceremonial masks, Aboriginal bark paintings and rock engravings, and shields and spears, often with intricately engraved handles and blades. There are also the more unusual items, including shrunken heads – human heads of enemies that were killed in battle and kept as trophies by soldiers in the Qin dynasty and skulls used for ancestor worship. In 2016, we sold a varied collection of Tribal Art that included Aboriginal figures, an Inuit Doll, body ornaments, a West African Dan Mask as well as a boomerang and Aboriginal shield decorated by renowned Australasian artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. The collection was accrued in the 1980s, and was used to decorate the offices, meeting rooms and cabinets in the offices of a prominent oil company. A change of premises led to the dissolution of the collection. In July this year, we had a small section dedicated to this area with the highlight being an early 20th-century Nigerian African carved God of Twins, Abeji, which was 21 cm high and sold for £1,600. Also in the auction was a collection of beads and charms, including a snake vertebrae, three late-19th-century ivory- 

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