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Malagan figure
New Ireland
19th century
Wood (alstonia), pigment, parinarium fruit paste (top & sides of head), and turbo petholatus opercula
H. 109 cm
TC 50

"The fully three-dimensional malanggan figures generally have added attributes including bird and animal forms...The figures often clutch frameworks of rods which enclose them...These figurative malanggans, like other sculptures from New Ireland, serve as receptacles for the vital force of one, or even several, dead persons." (Newton & Waterfield 1995: 314)

Provenance:
Lewis/Wara Gallery, Seattle, 2001
Gorringes Auction Galleries 2000
Hammerstein family 1924-2000
Collected Hans Jacob Hammerstein 1912-14

Lewis Wara Gallery:"Collected between 1912 and 1914 by Hans Jacob Hammerstein in New Ireland while he was in transit from Tsing-tao (a German possession on the mainland of China) to Europe via the United States. Inherited by Mr. Hammerstein's brother in 1924 who in turn passed the figure to his son, a High Court Judge in England. Sold by the Judge at a small English country auction in February of 2000. Lewis/Wara Gallery, Seattle & New York." May 29, 2001.
Gorringes Auction Galleries: "...Lot 641- A Solomon Islands Long
Carving, 15th February 2000 Sale. The vendor of the above lots, a High Court Judge supplied us with a letter outlining the history of them which reads as follows."The Totem Pole [malagan]and ...The history of my family's acquisitions of these two items is totally founded on what my father told me during his lifetime, there are no documents to verify these matters. They were acquired between 1912 and 1914 by my uncle Hans Jacob Hammerstein in that part of the Solomon Islands which were then a German colony whilst in transit from Tsing-tao, then also a German possession on the mainland of China, to the United States en route to Europe. My uncle had been working in Tsing-tao for some years and was returning to Germany before settling in what was the German East Africa later Tanganyika. The acquisition must have been between the above dates as according to my parents - by 1912 my uncle had left Tsing-tao and by 1914 he had acquired a plantation and made his home in the African colony. It was on his return to Germany before moving to Africa that he gave these two items to my father then left them to me. My uncle met his death in 1924."