Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas | Antiquities - 19th February 2025
Lot 392
A Massim club
Estimate £300 - £400 | Hammer £403
Inc. Buyers Premium
Description
A Massim club
Trobriand Islands
with carved scroll decoration to the top part of the blade,
74.5cm long.
Provenance
Frank Hurley, Australia, (1885 - 1962) photographer, filmmaker, adventurer. Hurley worked on Shackleton's Antarctic expedition of 1914 - 1917, photographing the Endurance whilst being marooned with the rest of the crew. In the 1920s he mounted various expeditions to Papua New Guinea, which involved film making and collecting on behalf of the Australian museum and himself. He stored a number of artefacts in a log cabin at Whale Beach, which became an exotic setting for Sydney's glitterati attending raucous parties there in the 1930s. Selling the property after the war, he left the contents of the cabin which were kept by the new owners, who moved to London in 1959.