A very fine, and powerfully carved male, ancestor-figure holding his erect phallus to the tip of his exaggerated nose. This unusual configuration is rarely documented in the various ancestral representations of the lower to middle Sepik area and its meaning remains to be deciphered. This minute figure with its immense nose can be seen as the representation of brag, a form of ancestral spirit, which has functions relating to hunting and warfare along the coastal areas to the west and east of the Sepik/Ramu Delta. An amulet of this type and size would have been attached to the bag used by a warrior to carry his most important belongings and the figure would have provided protective powers.

Lower Sepik River, PNG, Melanesia. Wood with a fine glossy patina over red ochre. 11 x 3,6 x 4,4 cm. 19th/20th century. Original Inigaki wood base with dry stamp. Ex coll. Gala & Salvator Dali at Cadaquès, Spain before 1939. Given to their Governess upon their departure for New York in 1940. By descent through her family. It appears that Gala obtained this piece for Dali, perhaps from her ex-husband the collector Paul Eluard, knowing his fascination with the rare sexual practice of autofellatio.

Ref.:
• http://www.salvador-dali.org

• Kelm, H.: KUNST VOM SEPIK. Vol. I, II, III. Berlin, Museum für Volkerkunde. 1966.

• Meyer, Anthony JP: OCEANIC ART / OZEANISCHE KUNST / ART OCEANIEN. Könemann Verlag, Köln. 1995.

• NEW GUINEA ART – Masterpieces From The JOLIKA Collection of Marcia & John Friede. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco & 5 Continent Editions, San Francisco & Milano, 2005.

 
It is well known that Dali had an intense dislike for Tribal Art (then known as “Negro“ or “Primitive Art“) and this can be observed in the following two passages from page 287, Chap. 11 from the autobiographical book THE SECRET LIFE OF SALVADOR DALI, by Salvador Dali, translated by Haakon M. Chevalier, Published by Dial Press & Burton C. Hoffman, NY, 1942, Fourth Printing :

<<At the moment when I arrived in Paris, the intellectual elements were rotten with the nefarious and already declining influence of Bergsonism which, with its apology of instinct and of l'elan vital (the life urge), had led to the crudest esthetic revaluations. Indeed an influence blown over from Africa swept over the Parisian mind with a savage-intellectual frenzy that was enough to
make one weep. People adored the lamentable instinctive products of real savages. Negro art had just been enthroned, and this was accomplished with the aid of Picasso and the surrealists !>>

<<When I reflected that the heirs of the intelligence of a Raphael Sanzio had fallen into such an aberration, I blushed with shame and rage. I had to find the antidote, the banner with which to challenge these blind and immediate products of fear, of absence of intelligence and of spiritual enslavement ; and against the African “Savage Objects“ I upheld the ultra-decadent, civilized and European “Modern Style“ (art nouveau ed. N.) objects.>>
Regarding the provenance of the piece I can only surmise at the moment about how it arrived on Dali's desk and why he wanted to keep it. However I do know that, as quoted above, he had an intense dislike of tribal art so the reason for enjoying the piece must reside in what it represented to him. His interest in voyeurism & solitary sexual practices along with that of his close friend Bunuel are well known and recorded. The figure is possibly not doing what Dali thought it was but the imagery is powerfully evocative. As to where he got it : his wife Gala was previously married to Paul Eluard the great surrealist poet, intellectual, and collector of tribal art - thus Gala was intimately involved in tribal art and lived amongst it. Following a menage-a-trois between she, Paul and Max Ernst in the 1920's she ran off with Ernst who was a major collector of tribal art. She returned to Eluard only to leave him – this time for Dali. And, it is as of this moment that I believe she gave him the Sepik figure. Gala could have acquired it from either Eluard or Ernst - possibly even from André Breton. In any event Dali and Gala left Spain for NY in the early 40's with the declaration of WW II. They left behind most of their belongings entrusted to their governess. Her heirs have now started to sell of the photos, books, artworks, and souvenirs that she kept from her time in Cadaques with Dali & Gala. The provenance research is on-going.
AJPM 2008