Exceptionnelle statue masculine, île Nias, Indonésie

Acquise d'Emile Deletaille, Bruxelles, 1979

Exposée et reproduite dans :
Feldman, The Eloquent Dead - Ancestral Sculpture of Indonesia ans Southeast Asia, 1985 : 58, n° 31, catalogue de l'exposition, UCLA Museum of Cultural History, 8 octobre 1985 - 24 novembre 1985

Barbier et Newton, Islands and Ancestors, Indigenous Styles of Southeast Asia, 1988 : 41, n° 40, catalogue de l'exposition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988

Crack running along the right side of the figure, from the stomach to the edge of the headdress, 5 cm in width on the side of the face, and 1 cm wide along the edge of the headdress, visible in the catalogue illustration, as is the very thin crack on the torso and the open crack on the front of the base. Otherwise in very good overall condition. No repairs or restoration.
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Les expositions The Eloquent Dead au UCLA Museum of Cultural History et Islands and Ancestors au Metropolitan Museum of Art, révélèrent dans les années 1980 l'exceptionnelle richesse et la beauté des arts de l'Indonésie et de l'Asie du Sud-Est. Dans chacune de ces deux expositions emblématiques, cette "extraordinaire statue, d'une remarquable qualité sculpturale" (Feldman, 1985) fut présentée comme l'un des chefs-d'œuvre de l'ancienne statuaire de l'île Nias.  

S'impose ici d'emblée le génie artistique avec lequel le sculpteur a rendu la puissance de son sujet. Réalisée par un maître sculpteur du centre de l'île Nias, cette statue s'apparente si étroit.mes nt à deux autres conservées dans la Christensen Fund collects ion que Feldman les attribue sans aucun doute à une même main (idem : 59 et 18, n° 3), et les associe à deux autres - plus petites - entrées en 1907 dans les collects ions du Royal Ethnological Museum de Leiden.  

Selon Viaro (in RMN, 2000 : 230), la qualité des statues adu zatua - effigies de défunts - dépendait de l'importance du mort. Ici la figuration des ornements en or - haute coiffe à décor de fougère, boucle d'oreille sur le côté droit, collier torsadé et bracelet porté au poignet droit - signifie la richesse et la très haute position sociale du défunt. Enfin, le très rare motif des deux têtes humaines reposant sur les genoux - lié à la chasse aux têtes et au rôle du chef d'assurer la continuité de la lignée et la fertilité du village (Newton, 1988 : 40) - ajouté à la dimension de l'œuvre, confirment le statut de chef de l'ancêtre représenté.

Dans le catalogue, Feldman (1985 : n°32) publie au regard de cette statue le dessin d'après photographie (avant 1917) d'une maison du village d'Holi (le long de la rivière Gawo, Centre de l'île) montrant, fixée sur le fronton - là où d'habitude sont exposées des figures protectrices de monstres lasara - une statue très comparable. A l'exceptionnelle qualité sculpturale s'ajoute ainsi l'importance majeure que cette statue revêtait aux yeux de la communauté, "recevant des offrandes quand le chef était malade, quand il devait proférer un jugement ou décider une entreprise guerrière" (Viaro, idem).

An exceptional Nias Island male figure, Indonesia

In the 1980s, two exhibitions, The Eloquent Dead at the UCLA Museum of Cultural History, and Islands and Ancestors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, helped to reveal to the public the exceptional wealth and beauty of Indonesian and Southeast Asian art. Both these seminal exhibitions included the offered figure, a masterpiece of Nias art which Feldman (1985: 58) has described as an 'extraordinary' and 'beautifully carved' example of its kind.

The genius with which the carver has rendered the power of the subject of this figure is evident upon first sight. Created by a master carver from Central Nias, this figure and two others in the Christensen Fund collects ion are so similar that Feldman suggests that they must have been produced by the same hand (ibid., 59 and 18, no. 3). This figure might also be related to two smaller sculptures which entered the collects ion of the Royal Ethnological Museum, Leiden in 1907. This date suggests a nineteenth century carving date for the offered figure.

According to Viaro (in RMN, 2000: 230) the quality of adu zatua ancestor figures depends upon the importance of the deceased. Here the representation of the gold ornaments –the high head-dress, which is decorated with ferns, the earring, coiled necklace and the bracelet worn upon the right wrist, all points towards the wealth and high social position of the deceased. The size of the figure and the two heads which rest upon its knees, a rare motif which is linked with head-hunting and the chief's role in assuring 'the continued fertility and continuity of his family and the village' (Newton, 1988: 40), confirm that this ancestor was a Chief.

Opposite the photograph of this figure in the catalogue, Feldman (1985: ill. 32) reproduces a drawing which was made after a 1917 photograph of a house from the village of Holi, near the Gawo River in Central Nias. The drawing shows a protective lasara figure, of a similar style to the offered example, standing on a beam at the front of the house. The exceptional sculptural quality of the offered work would have been matched by the importance with which it was held in its original community, where it would have 'received offerings when the chief was sick, when he needed to announce a judgment, or when he was deciding upon whether to go into war' (Viaro, ibid.).