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A rare engraved pictographic bamboo. The imagery is unusual as only colonial French military personnel and two European women are depicted along with a variety of domestic animals. On the left section a series of 3 horizontal registers show French soldiers standing at ease with rifles - French soldiers seated and drinking wine from cups or stemmed glasses - French soldiers on horse back including an officer and his wife holding hands. The right hand section is a mixture of vertical, various size, standing French military officers, one European female with dress and hair-do as well as animals. New Caledonia, Melanesia. Bamboo with burnt bancoul-nut blackening. 79 x 5 Ø cm, 19th century (circa 1840/1880). From a German private collection. Engraved bamboo with geometric designs are known from the pre-contact period. Figurative depictions seem to begin around the middle of the 19th century with the arrival of the first French colonial forces and migrants. There are no recorded narratives pertaining to the events or people depicted on the figurative bamboo and the meaning and function of these emblematic objects remains un-known. |
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The “primitive“ style of the engraving on this bamboo is consistent with the earliest examples and quite certainly pre-dates the very Europeanized and naturalistic examples such as the ones carved in 1891 - now in the collections of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle de Grenoble, France Ref.: Boulay, Roger: LE BAMBOU GRAVE KANAK. Editions Parenthèses/A.D.C.K., Marseille, 1993. |
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