The Collection of Allan Stone, which constitutes a major
part of Sotheby's May 16th 2014 sale of African and
Oceanic art, encompasses 91 works from Mali, Ivory
Coast, Guinea, Ghana, Sierra Leone, West Africa, Liberia,
Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Tanzania and the
Sudan; and another 32 works from the Americas. The
display is museological in scope, providing the opportu-
nity to encounter these presiding spirits at close range,
to experience the aesthetic, spiritual and tactile power
of these objects out from behind the glass case. That
power is transmitted, in many cases, through the agency
of carved wood, a material which I think of as akin to our
human state, vegetal as well as solid. The other dominant
Ngbandi Male Ancestor figure, Ubangi River Region,
Democratice Republic of Congo
HYLAND
