The memory of ancestors is religiously guarded in each family: fetishes, ornaments, weapons are passed down. If the memory of dead parents is not honored, they would take revenge with an inevitable punishment," he then scrupulously notes in his famous work Au cœur ck l'Afrique. But, where the Fang artists showed their inclination for powerful round-bosses, the Kota admitted, for their part, a clear predilection for abstraction and stylization. Covered with thin strips of copper and brass, their reliquary figures thus surprise by their two-dimensional character, quite rare in African art. A charming engraving, published in 1888 in the magazine Le Tour du Monde, nevertheless places them in their original context: gathered in a small hut, sheltered from profane and impure eyes, they topped the bark boxes preserving the skulls and bones of important members of the tribe. Far, very far from these ethnological considerations, collectors and artists of the early 20th century appreciated above all, in these eminently decorative sculptures, the strange flat and ovoid face punctuated by the two large circular eyes of these "guardians of the forces of the beyond." The piece has been cleaned to bring out the colours of the different metals used in its creation. The object will be carefully packed. A tracking number is provided to track your package. We don't ship outside of the European continent.