Title
Painting from ceremonial house
mid 20th century
collected 1965
Artists
Unknown Artist
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Details
- Other Titles
- Bark painting
Spathe painting - Place where the work was made
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Yuat River
→
East Sepik Province
→
Papua New Guinea
- Cultural origin
- possibly Biwat people
- Dates
- mid 20th century
collected 1965 - Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- sago palm petioles, plant fibre, orange-red ochre, white mineral clay and black pigments
- Dimensions
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103.7 x 63.0 cm
:
0 - Whole, 8.5 cm, approx. depth of panels
- Credit
- Purchased 1965
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 369.1994
- Share
-
About
Throughout the Sepik river, in particular the lower Sepik groups of Anggoram and Kambot as well as the Abelam region, ceremonial houses were decorated with panels made from sago palm petiotes, known as 'panggals'. Using charcoal, ochres and other mineral pigments, artists painted onto panels, which were often bound together with plant fibre to form a larger surface on which to work.
These panels were adorned with paintings representing mythological beings, spirits and motifs from the Sepik plant and animal world. The motifs found on this panel resemble designs found on paintings collected on the Berlin Ethnological Museum's Sepik expedition of 1912-13, and reproduced in Heinz Kelm's 'Kunst vom Sepik' (catalogue numbers 328-332), published in 1966.
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Bibliography
Referenced in 1 publication
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Tony Tuckson, Aboriginal and Melanesian art, Sydney, 1973, 44. cat.no. 36; note on catalogue card states 'not in ex.'
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