Paris, 18 May 2026 - The online auction of African and Oceanic Art running on www. Bonhams.com from 8 to 18 May 2026 will feature a selection of over sixty lots from the collection of Antonio Onrubia, a collector from Barcelona.
Among the highlights are a Korwar ancestor figure, Kaipuri, from Kurudu Island in Cenderawasih Bay, New Guinea, carved from wood and collected in 1929 by Jacques Viot (estimate: €5,000 to 8,000), a mask from the Keram River from the collections of Gustav Umlauff and Bruce Seaman (estimate: €4,000 to 6,000), and a Kuba cup from the Democratic Republic of the Congo acquired from Charles Ratton in the 1960s (estimate: €5,000 to 8,000).
There will also be a Bena Lula figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo from the Tara collection (Werner Gillon) (estimate: €5,000 to 8,000) and a fine set of spoons and weaving pulleys from West Africa, most of which have a prestigious provenance: from the Paolo Morigi collection in Magliaso, Switzerland, a Guro heddle pulley, Ivory Coast, made of wood and estimated at €2,000 to 3,000, which were exhibited at the Museum Rietberg in Zurich during an exhibition on Guro Art in 1985.
The sale also features a uperb Yoruba Oshe Shango staff from Nigeria, attributed to the master carver Abogunde of Ede (estimate: €15,000 to 20,000), almost certainly dating from the late 19th century. Shango is one of the most important deities (orisha) in the Yoruba pantheon in Nigeria. God of thunder, Magician King, great seducer and fearsome warrior, Shango is at once feared, respected and revered. His principal symbol is the double axe, which expresses his thunderous powers, and his gift of second sight enables him to punish the guilty.
A beautiful Baule female figure from Ivory Coast, attributed to the Ascher Master, comes from a private collection in the United States and is estimated between €10,000 and €15,000.
A Korwar ancestor figure from Cenderawasih Bay, which formed part of the exceptional collection of Korwars in the collection of Henry Blekkink will also be offered with an estimate of €10,000 to 15,000. Henry Blekkink (1888-1953) was a Dutch geography teacher who spent the first ten years of his childhood in the Dutch East Indies. Blekkink most likely acquired his collection of Korwar objects from a Protestant missionary of the Utrecht Missionary Society, Frans Johannes Frederik van Hasselt (1870 to 1939).
From the Alix de Rothschild collection, a Maori Kotiate hand club from New Zealand, made of whale bone and measuring 29 cm in length, which was exhibited at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in 1972 during the exhibition 'La Découverte de la Polynésie' (estimate: €8,000 to 12,000).
(Press Release)
