Female bulul Sculpture, northern Luzon, Philippines

Wood, pigments, crusty patina

H. 57cm

Provenance:

Espino collection, Manila, before 1978

J.J. Klejman, New York

Private collection, New York

Publication:

Loudmer-Poulain Paris, Arts Primitifs, December 16^th 1978, lot 97

Sold

This female bulul sculpture made by an artist of the Ifugao in northern Luzon with its rich, multilayered sacrificial patina that indicates great age is a marvelous example of its style. Every single line – such as the hearth-shaped form that builds the face or the negative space between the arms – is of uttermost precision. The legendary dealer J.J. Klejman acquired it in 1978 from a Loudmer-Poulain auction in Paris for which Charles Ratton and André Schoeller served as experts and subsequently sold it to an important collection of extra-European art in New York of which it was part for several decades.