Description: A WOOD MALE ANCESTOR FIGURE 'SINGITI'
Democratic Republic of the Kongo, Hemba
57 cm high
Provenance: Vittorio Bellini (1936-2009) collection.
The sculptures of 'singiti' ancestors are undoubtedly the hallmark of the artistic production of the Hemba, and one of the vertices of the entire African statuary. The Hemba were convinced that the dead lived in a world parallel to that of the living, from which they watched over the welfare of the community.