Reliquary Figure

Reliquary figures, called Mbulu-Ngulu, were commissioned by elders of the Kota people from north-eastern Gabon. They were fixed to the lids of baskets or containers which held the bones and skulls of respected ancestors and were housed in the clan’s or family’s home. From about 1912 this work was in the collection of Roger Fry, along with a few other African and Oceanic wooden sculptures and objects that he had bought on the Parisian art market. Fry was fascinated by the aesthetics of African carving– praising its ‘vital rhythm’ and often illustrating his lectures with his own pieces. However, he had no interest in nor concept of its meaning or history. For modernist artists and writers, African art belonged to an earlier stage of civilisation, known as ‘Primitivism’. This reveals the racist ideas of the time, which underpinned even the views of progressives like Fry.