Mixed Results at Sotheby’s African, Oceanic, and Pre-Columbian Sale

NEW YORK—Sotheby’s spring sale of African, Oceanic, and pre-Columbian art on May 16 saw astronomical prices for certain objects, while other, also worthy pieces attracted little interest and earned less than they deserved. Overall, the sale did very well, making a total of just over $10 million, well above the pre-sale estimates of $4.7–6.7 million. Of the 193 lots offered, 143 found buyers, yielding a sold percentage of 74.1 by lot, or a more impressive 92.1 by value.

The African and Oceanic art portion of the sale brought $9.1 million, more than $2 million over its high pre-sale estimate. The buyers, according to Jean Fritts, worldwide director of African & Oceanic Art at Sotheby’s, were not the “same old people,” but rather included an influx of new buyers, some of whom are collectors in other fields, notably contemporary art. Fritts also noted an increased presence of African dealers, who she said are bidding at higher levels than ever before.

The sale’s star lot was a Baga serpent from the Republic of Guinea, one of 32 lots from the collection of Norman and Shelly Dinhofer, who are selling their large Brooklyn house and moving to Manhattan. “We had it in our house in Brooklyn for 41 years,” said Shelly Dinhofer, “and now it is time to let it go.” The serpent, which looks more like a contemporary sculpture than an actual snake, was one of eight collected in 1957 by dealers Henri and Hélène Kamer, who sold it in 1961 to dealer Pierre Matisse, from whom the Dinhofers bought it. At Sotheby’s, the work sold, to applause, to a telephone bidder who chiefly collects contemporary art, for $3,289,000 (est. $1.5–2 million). Also from the Dinhofer collection, a Teke male power figure from the Democratic Republic of the Congo doubled its high estimate to sell to a woman in the room who was talking on her cell phone — presumably to her client, said to be a European collector — for $301,000. The Dinhofer collection also included African ceremonial weapons, including a zoomorphic Fon brass scepter from Benin, in the form of a lion devouring a monkey, previously owned by both collector Sam Wagstaff and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The work brought $40,000 (est. $7,000–10,000).

The buyer of the Teke power figure also bought a Luba hermaphrodite figure from the Democratic Republic of Congo, for $511,000 (est. $80–100,000), beating out bidders in the room including Carlo Bella, director of Pace Primitive, and Paris dealer Alain Monbrison.

The sale also included 31 pieces from the collection of the late Walter and Molly Bareiss. Walter Bareiss, who died in 2007, was briefly interim director of the Museum of Modern Art and was a collector of 20th-century American and European art before turning to African art in the last 20 years of his life. Bareiss and his wife, who died in 2006, concentrated on pieces from Central and Southeastern Africa, fields largely neglected by collectors and museums at that time.

The most important work from the collection was a Songye power figure, collected in situ by Gaston Heenen, Governor of Katanga, before 1937. The figure sold over the telephone to a European dealer for $451,000 (est. $250–350,000). Also on sale from the collection were three wood thrones from Tanzania, only 20 of which are known to exist. According to Heinrich Schweitzer, head of Sotheby’s African & Oceanic Art department in New York, the societies that made them were matrilineal, and the power of the chiefs was derived through their mother. All of the pieces have female heads and breasts. The three objects sold for $31,000, $37,000, and $43,000, all within their estimate ranges, but the general feeling was that given their rarity and age they should have gone higher.

Other notable lots included a Hawaiian wood bowl, which sold to a telephone bidder for $85,000 (est. $7,000–10,000), and a Puno mask from Gabon, which went to a brand new, unidentified buyer — Sotheby’s would only say that he is “not American" — for $337,000 (est. $100–150,000). The mask has a distinguished provenance, having been included in the 1915 book Negerplastik by German poet and art critic Carl Einstein, but Fritts says that Sotheby's kept its estimate low because some of the kaolin pigment had been lost. A wonderful Vili kneeling figure from the Democratic Republic of Congo, measuring only four and a half inches, went for $289,000 (est: $30-50,000). The sculpture is a prime example of what Fritts says is the current taste for “small jewel-like objects.”  

The sale also included some 30 Pre-Columbian lots, which earned a total of $1 million, around the low estimate. The highest price was $481,000 (est. $400–600,000), paid for a large Olmec jade mask by an American collector who was bidding on the telephone against the reserve price. Although rare and important, the mask has enormous circular eyes that give the face a silly cross-eyed appearance. A more interesting, but smaller, Maya jade mosaic mask inexplicably failed to sell (est: $150–200,000).