Louis Ledoux: Papua New Guinea Collection
By Willow Auction House
Nov 16, 2021
2 Frassetto Way Lincoln Park, NJ 07035, United States

Adventurer, Academic, Industrialist: Louis Pierre Ledoux 1936 New Guinea Expedition


In early 1936, on recommendation by American anthropologist Margaret Mead, Louis Pierre Ledoux, recent Harvard University graduate, headed to the lower eastern Sepik River of Papua New Guinea to study the Murik people.


The results of his self-funded expedition is an extraordinary collection of hundreds of artifacts, photographs, manuscripts, diaries, and letters left untouched for 85 years.

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LOT 82:

Openwork Figure, Kopar / Angoram

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Sold for: $35,000
Start price:
$ 10,000
Estimated price :
$20,000 - $30,000
Buyer's Premium: 28% More details
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Openwork Figure, Kopar / Angoram

Openwork carved figure, Kopar / Angoram style, with white stripes, red and yellow pigment, shell and rope ornamentation. Anthropomorphic.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes a similar openwork figure attributed to the collection of Wolfgang Paalen, a Surrealist painter (1905-1959). as being used perhaps as dance wands. The long beak-like nose and lean body likely represent powerful spirits.

Similar figure held by the Uebersee-Museum in Bremen, Germany is described by Suzanne Greub (see Similar items below) in 1985 "In the area of Angoram … , figures of this kind seem to have been carried at dances tied to short bamboo wands."

Locale: Lower Sepik River
Country: Papua New Guinea
Date: 1936 or earlier
Material: Wood, pigment, shell, rope
Dimensions: H 26" / 66 cm
Technique: Carved

Provenance: Louis Pierre Ledoux Collection

Similar items:
2012 Bretagenes Encheres, attributed to the La Korrigane Expedition to the Sepik in 1934-36
https://www.artkhade.com/object/JIP3g6pY

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/311168

1985 Greub, Suzanne (ed.) Authority and Ornament: Art of the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea. Tribal Art Center, Basel, plate 154, page 205.



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