The Primordial Couple of the Senufo society

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

As early as June 20, Sotheby's, in a press release, announced a very important pair of Senufo statues, for sale in New York on November 14. To learn more, I waited for the catalog, in which it appears as lot number 63.

These statues have many qualities that justify their estimate of $ 3 million. They are large: 1.16 m for the male and 0.97 m for the female, in very good condition, and relatively old because they are believed to be created in the late nineteenth century or beginning of the twentieth century. Acquired in 1961 by Nelson Rockefeller, they were until 1967 part of his Museum of Primitive Art in New York, and were often exhibited and described.

This couple of ancestors of the Senufo society from Ivory Coast is powerful, with protruding chins, and arms and legs slightly bent in a position of ritual dance. The heads are dressed with large size symbolic attributes. The patina is deep brown with red, ochre and white pigments. The identical overall position of the two statues reinforces the idea of a complementarity man - woman of the primordial Senufo couple, to whom the creator of the world, whose catalog reminds us that his name was Kolotyolo, gave birth together as twins.

It is rare that such a pair has been preserved without being separated.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

The sale of the Rosenthal collection fetched $ 10.8 million including expenses, including $ 4 million for this pair of Senufo ancestors. The price of this lot rewards the condition, the ornamentation, the pedigree ... and advertising, since it was announced long time in advance and had long been at a place of honor on the site of Sotheby's.