Archives: Art For Sale

A Fine Old Australian Aboriginal Shield Lagrange Bay West Australia 19th C

This finely carved old shield is unique because normally La Grange Bay shields have the incised interlocking key designs only on one side being the back of the shield and the front is either undecorated or has vertical striations but this fine example has incised interlocking key designs on both sides.  This is the only shield I have seen that has the same beautifully incised designs on both sides.

These designs are unique in Australia to Karadjeri People of the La Grange Bay Area of the Northeast Coast of Western Australia. This design is also found on the famous pearl shell ornaments call “Longka Longka” from this area.

This design is also sometimes found on Spear Throwers but it is on the back of the Karadjeri shields where the design is executed in the most elegant manner,

Reference:

Interlocking Key Design in Aboriginal Australian Decorative Art. Dr. D. S. Davidson. First published: September 1949

Provenance: The Todd Barlin Collection of Oceanic & Aboriginal Art 

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If you have a similar “object” for sale please contact me for the best price and honest advice by a Government approved valuer 

To see many more rare items and the finest masterpieces, please make an appointment with us to visit the gallery.

For all inquiries, please contact us.

This finely carved Kimberley shield with fine incised herringbone design on the front and the back having incised linear striations over the entire surface and bisected with horizontal sections. The lug handle and entire shield with old use patina and traces of red ochre.

One of the most beautiful motifs in aboriginal art is the herringbone design, a design prominent at one time or another in many parts of the world, including ancient Greece, China and Peru.

Reference:

Interlocking Key Design in Aboriginal Australian Decorative Art. Dr. D. S. Davidson, First published: September 1949

Provenance: The Todd Barlin Collection

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If you have a similar “object” for sale please contact me for the best price and honest advice by a Government approved valuer 

To see many more rare items and the finest masterpieces, please make an appointment with us to visit the gallery.

For all inquiries, please contact us.

Breast Shield Ramu River Area Madang Province Papua New Guinea 19th Century 

This ancient stone-carved Breast Shield is from the Josephstaal area in the Middle Ramu River area of Madang Province Papua New Guinea.  This is a rare type of shield that a man wore over his chest to protect from arrows. It must have hung around his neck with a rope from the two worn holes seen in the photo. Its hard to see the very old designs incised to the upper part of the shield, it looks much better in real life.

Provenance: Collected by Andy Kugler in 1967. Kugler was working in the upper Sepik Area at the same time that Douglas Newton the curator of Oceanic Art at The Museum of Primitive Art in New York the forerunner of The Micheal Rockefeller Wing of Oceanic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  Kugler had much of his collection on loan with The Museum of Primitive Art and some of these artworks were published in the famous book on the upper Sepik cultures: ” Crocodile & Cassowary ” 1971 by Douglas Newton.

The Todd Barlin Collection of Oceanic Papua New Guinea Art

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If you have a similar “object” for sale please contact me for the best price and honest advice by a Government approved valuer 

To see many more rare items and the finest masterpieces, please make an appointment with us to visit the gallery.

For all inquiries, please contact us.

A Fine Old Hooked Tennant Creek Boomerang Northern Australia 

This old Boomerang is sold but I have two other fine old examples in my collection, please ask me

Provenance: The Todd Barlin Collection or Oceanic & Aboriginal Art

The fine old and well used Wunda Shield from Western Australia and dating from the late 19th Century.

Wunda Shields are one of the finest of all Aboriginal Shields made in by the indigenous people of Australia. An early Wunda shield is beautifully carved in an oval form from a thin hard wood, they are slightly convex on the front and slightly concave with a lug handle on the back. They adorned with incised bold zig zag patterns consisting of a series of longitudinal grooves accented with red and white ochre, Wunda shields were once used across a large portion of the vast state of Western Australia.  Most of the Wunda Shields have the zig zag designs on the front and the reverse can either have either other types of abstract designs or vertical striations over the entire back surface.

Although widely distributed in the region, the shields appear to have been produced mainly by peoples living in the area between the Gascoyne and Murchison rivers, which drain into Australia’s western coast, and traded to other groups along a vast network of inland exchange routes.

Like many forms of Aboriginal shields, Wunda were used in fighting for protection against projectile weapons, such as spears and boomerangs. They were also carried by performers in ritual contexts, especially when ceremonies reenacting specific episodes from the Dreaming (primordial creation period), in which ancestral beings were said to have been armed with shields.
Many of these old Wunda Shields where collected in the late 19^th Century, they were old at the time it’s likely that these are from the early 19^th Century due to their age when collected.

Provenance:
Ex Kelly Collection, a Western Australian Farmer in 1890s

References:

Further information on the designs of Wunda Shield can be found on this article:

The Symbolism of the North-Western Australian Zigzag Design

Author(s): C. G. von Brandenstein

Source: Oceania, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Mar., 1972), pp. 223-238

Published by: Wiley on behalf of Oceania Publications, University of Sydney

A Fine Old New Guinea Wood Head Yangoru Boiken Area East Sepik Province Papua New Guinea

This finely carved and painted wood head called Idap was used in Yam Harvest ceremonies that are at the heart of the Abelam Boiken Cultures. One of the major focuses of ceremonial life among the Abelam people of northeast New Guinea is the competitive growth and exchange of long yams. The Abelam cultivate two distinct categories of yams—a small variety used as ordinary food and long yams, massive tubers that can be as much as twelve feet long. A man’s social status is determined largely by his success in growing long yams. Each man has a permanent exchange partner to whom he ceremonially presents his largest yams
following the annual harvest, later receiving those of his rival in return. Men who are consistently able to give their partners longer yams than they receive gain great prestige. Lavishly adorned for the presentation ceremony, the finest long yams are essentially transformed into human images, decorated in the manner of men in full ceremonial regalia. The “heads” of the enormous tubers are adorned with specially made yam masks such as this one, which is made exclusively for yams and is never worn by humans.

Provenance: The Todd Barlin Collection of New Guinea Oceanic Art 

I first went to Papua New Guinea in 1985 for an adventure & what I found was that I really enjoyed being with the people of New Guinea, over the next 38 years I spent extensive time spent collecting and documenting traditional art & ceremonies in remote areas of Papua New Guinea & West Papua, The Solomon Islands & Vanuatu & the other Pacific Islands countries. During these travels, I made major collections of New Guinea & Oceanic Art for major Museums and Public Art Galleries

I was honoured by being in the prestigious Louvre Museum Magazine for the collections I made for The Museum of African & Oceanic Art Paris in 1996 (now the Musee Quai Branly) for the exhibition “Asmat et Mimika d’ Irian Jaya April 1996 At THE MUSEE NATIONAL des ARTS D’AFRIQUE et d’ OCEANIE, Paris

See all of the links & photos in my new EXHIBITIONS GALLERY and there is the link to the article in the prestigious Louvre Magazine 1996

I have artwork for Museums & Art Galleries but also for collectors at every stage of their collecting. I want to encourage people to explore the fine art of New Guinea & West Papua and the Pacific Islands and to be able to see and touch the artworks in a relaxed and friendly manner in my Sydney Gallery.  I would like to invite you to visit my gallery and see the artworks in person and also look at my website www.oceanicartsaustralia.com  where there are many Galleries & Sub Galleries to explore.

My Gallery of nearly 40 years is the last physical gallery in Sydney that specialises in New Guinea & Oceanic Art. Sydney is just a couple hours’ flight to New Guinea & the Pacific Islands where all of these amazing artworks came from, Australia’s closest neighbours.

INQUIRE HERE

If you have a similar “object” for sale please contact me for the best price and honest advice by a Government approved valuer 

To see many more rare items and the finest masterpieces, please make an appointment with us to visit the gallery.

For all inquiries, please contact us.