Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas | Antiquities - 20th February 2024

Lot 455

A Chimbu zoomorphic headrest

Estimate £600 - £800 | Hammer £693

Inc. Buyers Premium

Description

A Chimbu zoomorphic headrest
Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea
carved from one piece as a crocodile with shell inlaid eyes, the underside with a handwritten label PILLOW. NEW GUINEA. SAVAGE COLLN. P:1080,
60cm long.

Provenance
Edwin Bentley Savage, Ringwood, Hampshire. Missionary with the London Missionary Society, working in the Pacific from 1886 - 1891.
Lieut. Gen. Augustus Henry Fox Pitt Rivers (1827 - 1900), purchased from the above in October 1894.

See The Pitt Rivers Archives, Volume 3, p.1080 for the catalogue entry and watercolour drawing of the headrest.