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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Australian Indigenous & Oceanic Art
• Sale Date:
  22 Jul 2014 ~ 6.30pm (Part 1 - Lots 1 - 198)
  23 Jul 2014 ~ 2.30pm (Part 2 - Lots 199 - 331)
• Lot #:
  35
• Lot Description:
  Lipundja
  (circa 1912-1968)
  Murayana (mokuy) (1965)
  natural earth pigments on carved wood
  74 cm high
• Provenance:
  Executed at Millingimbi, Central Arnhem Land (1965); Private Collection, New South Wales
• Notes:
  Among the Yolngu of central and eastern Arnhem Land, mokuy are regarded both as a type of supernatural being that mediates between the ancestral and the human worlds, and as a ghost or spirit of a deceased person. This particular figure is identified as Murayana, a trickster spirit that roams about the land. On its torso, the figure bears the diamond pattern associated with the Honey or Sugarbag ancestor of the Yirritja moiety clans, and in LipundjaÕs case, the Gupapuyngu. Lipundja was a renowned bark painter on the island of Milingimbi but he is particularly known for sculptures of mokuy figures. These figures characteristically are of a flattened form with broad legs and triangular faces outlined in yellow lines, with ears raised to sit either side of the forehead. The ground of the figures is painted black. According to Jennifer Hoff this type of mokuy figure was developed by and is unique to Lipundja (ÔAboriginal carved and painted human figures in north-east Arnhem landÕ in Ucko, P.J. (ed.), Form in Indigenous art: Schematisation in the art of Aboriginal Australia and prehistoric Europe, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1977, p.157). Three figures by the artist bearing the same honey design and entitled Wild honey figures in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria are illustrated in Ryan, J. et al, Land Marks, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2006, p. 29. See also a figure in the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection in LŸthi, B. (ed.), Aratjara, Art of the First Australians: Traditional and contemporary works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, DuMont, Cologne, 1993, plate 30, p. 160. A similar figure, most likely to be by Lipundja, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia is illustrated in O'Ferrall, M.A., Keepers of the Secrets: Aboriginal Art from Arnhemland in the Collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1990, p.74, plate 88. This mokuy figure appears in a photograph taken outside the craft shop on Milingimbi by Alan Fidock, a teacher at the Methodist Mission in the 1960s who was involved with the documentation and marketing of the art and artefacts produced on the island. The photograph is reproduced in Mundine, D., et al., The Native Born: Objects and representations from Ramingining, Arnhem Land, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1999, p. 66. This figure appears third from the left. Wally Caruana
• Estimate:
  A$18,000 - 25,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.