Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas | Antiquities Day One - 17th September 2025

Lot 302

An Elema bark belt

Estimate £400 - £600

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Description

An Elema bark belt
Papuan Gulf, Papua New Guinea
coiled with stylised carved decoration, tied with fibre and with three shell beads, one star shaped and the other circular, with a handwritten collection label KENNEDY COLLECTION No.434. NEW GUINEA. ELEMA DIST. MOTU.MOTU. BELT OF BARK. FROM REV J. CHALMERS COLLECTION. ETH: ALB: PL312. No.6. 2.11.94.


Provenance
Reverend James Chalmers Collection, UK. (1841 - 1901) A Scottish member of the London Missionary Society, working in Papua New Guinea between 1877 and 1901, assembling botanical and geographical information around the Papuan Gulf.
Kennedy Collection, UK. acquired from the above in 1894.
William Ohly (1883 - 1955) Berkeley Galleries and Abbey Museum, New Barnet, London, UK, and thence by descent.