Flute Ornament

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Flute Ornament

Papua New Guinea, East Sepik Province, Yuat River, Biwat People, circa 1925
Sculpture
Wood, shell inlay, cassowary feathers, and human hair
26 1/2 x 5 x 10 in. (67.31 x 12.7 x 25.4 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation with additional funding by Jane and Terry Semel, the David Bohnett Foundation, Camilla Chandler Frost, Gayle and Edward P. Roski, and The Ahmanson Foundation (M.2008.66.7)
Not currently on public view

Provenance

[Kenneth John Hewett (1919–1994), London]. Robert Alistair McAlpine (1942–2014), Baron of West Green, England, Australia, Paris, Venice and Southern Italy. Wayne Heathcote (b....
[Kenneth John Hewett (1919–1994), London]. Robert Alistair McAlpine (1942–2014), Baron of West Green, England, Australia, Paris, Venice and Southern Italy. Wayne Heathcote (b. 1943), New York, NY, sold to; Masco Corporation Collection, Livonia, MI, sold 2008 through; [Sotheby’s, New York, to]; LACMA.
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Label

Gallery Label

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Gallery Label
This elaborately decorated figural carving was used to plug the end of a Biwat flute. The plug was inserted into the mouthpiece of the long ceremonial flute, which would have been six to eight feet in length. The figure’s large head and smaller body is a representation of the ancestral crocodile spirit’s child. The carving has lost its painted surface, however the inlaid eyes and a cassowary bird feather headpiece are still in place. Though now lost, the figure also would have had a thick hair or shell beard, a shell or tusk piece in the septum of the nose, and ornaments of shell and fibers hanging from the large forehead and body. These additional adornments allowed only the eyes, nose, and mouth to be visible.

Flutes of this type were made in pairs and not played often. Initially used in a completion ceremony, they were stored as sacred objects until needed for rituals. Generally used in initiation ceremonies for young men, the flutes were hidden from the view of women, and sometimes given as part of a woman’s dowry.

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Bibliography

  • Wardwell, Allen. Island Ancestors: Oceanic Art from the Masco Collection. [Seattle]: University of Washington Press, 1994.
  • Gifts on the Occasion of LACMA's 50th Anniversary. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2015.
  • Wardwell, Allen. Island Ancestors: Oceanic Art from the Masco Collection. [Seattle]: University of Washington Press, 1994.
  • Gifts on the Occasion of LACMA's 50th Anniversary. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2015.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Transformation: the LACMA Campaign. Los Angeles: Museum Associates, 2008.
  • King, Jennifer, ed. Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2020.

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