SNK 1212-77
Congo Parade Sword with Decorated Handle, Angola/Congo
L: 53 cm (20,9″), W: 3,5 cm (1,4″)
This short Congo Parade Sword is most probably from Yombe (Bayombe, Majombe, Mayombe, Majumba, Yumbe), Angola/Congo. It has a carved wooden handle and a shaped iron blade.
Swords like this were used in ceremonial contexts as well as in warfare. Before military action, weapons were often empowered by rituals and application of medicinal substances.
The art of the royal court is manifested in objects of luxury such as commanders’ staffs, flyswats, scepters and swords.
Age: Est. mid 20th Century.
Provenance: Danish private collection and was either acquired directly from Lau (Laurence) Sunde’s collection in Copenhagen, which dates back to the 1940s, or Lau (Laurence) Sunde was an adviser to the collector.
Sunde had a “Etnografica” boutique in 1948, that became recognized among collectors as the most specialized boutique of its kind at the time. Tribal and oriental artefacts were purchased
from private collectors as well as at auctions in Paris, Amsterdam and London, among other places.
Full description of Lau (Laurence) Sunde will be forwarded by request.
Literature: Fischer, Werner, Zirngibl, Manfred A., Afrikanische Waffen
P. S. Abraham: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Polite Literature and Antiquities
Vol. 2 (1879 – 1888), pp. 82-90
