Lega Ivory Figure

shayde78 · 3rd July 2023, 05:25 AM

Thank you Ian, Detlef, and David!

I will try to take some additional photos that may confirm the presence, or lack thereof of Schreger lines.

In the meantime, I tracked down the catalogue description from 2005, when that similar item sold at auction. You can view the listing here https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions...4/lot.168.html

Since pages can disappear, I'll paste the relevant text below. Also, visiting the Sotheby's page, you'll see they list the material as hippo ivory, so that may help with identifying the material of my piece:

"The Studer-Koch iginga statue bears a rich and deep patina, evidencing a long period of handling, and was likely already several generations old at the time of its collection in 1937. Within the corpus of Lega ivory figures, it is distinguished by the unconventional rendering of the limbs in cascadic form, a unique stylistic feature. Its resonnanace with Modernist sensibilities prompted the French connoisseur Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller (2006: 334) to the following commentary: "There is no doubt that the Studer-Koch figurine is 'Primitivist' and aggressive in a quite unsettling way. Indeed, it is not a 'nice object.' [... Its] face is admirably modeled, its mouth is not lacking in ferocity, and its body is firmly planted on its two bowed legs. [... It occupies] a unique place in a large and well-known corpus.""

As always, thank you for the education,
-Rob

3rd July 2023, 05:25 AM	#10
shayde78 Member Join Date: Mar 2017 Posts: 445	Thank you Ian, Detlef, and David! I will try to take some additional photos that may confirm the presence, or lack thereof of Schreger lines. In the meantime, I tracked down the catalogue description from 2005, when that similar item sold at auction. You can view the listing here https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions...4/lot.168.html Since pages can disappear, I'll paste the relevant text below. Also, visiting the Sotheby's page, you'll see they list the material as hippo ivory, so that may help with identifying the material of my piece: "The Studer-Koch iginga statue bears a rich and deep patina, evidencing a long period of handling, and was likely already several generations old at the time of its collection in 1937. Within the corpus of Lega ivory figures, it is distinguished by the unconventional rendering of the limbs in cascadic form, a unique stylistic feature. Its resonnanace with Modernist sensibilities prompted the French connoisseur Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller (2006: 334) to the following commentary: "There is no doubt that the Studer-Koch figurine is 'Primitivist' and aggressive in a quite unsettling way. Indeed, it is not a 'nice object.' [... Its] face is admirably modeled, its mouth is not lacking in ferocity, and its body is firmly planted on its two bowed legs. [... It occupies] a unique place in a large and well-known corpus."" As always, thank you for the education, -Rob Last edited by shayde78; 4th July 2023 at 01:32 AM.