kibango Wood, brass, ritual patination height 53 1/2in (136cm) Provenance Karin and Leo Oosterom Collection, The Hague/Amsterdam Christie's, Paris, 4 December 2009, Lot 90 Robert and Nancy Nooter Collection, Washington, D.C. Published Lehuard, Raoul, "La Collection Karin and Leo Van Oosterom," Arts d'Afrique Noire, no. 49, 1984, p. 37 Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen Roberts note, "A Luba staff is like an enlarged detail of a map, for a staff tells the story of an individual family, lineage, or chiefdom, and how kingship came to the region. The map is read from top to bottom, beginning with the female figure at the summit of the staff. As one progresses down the staff, it is as if one were journeying across the Luba landscape, throughout the uninhabited savanna represented by the plain, unadorned shaft. Luba staff narrators often identify the surmounting female figure as king, whose spirit is carried in the body of a woman, and whose powers are tucked secretly within her breasts." (Memory - Luba Art and the Making of History, The Museum for African Art, New York, 1996, cat. 65, p. 169. The female figure on this staff of office sits on the top ledge with her legs hanging down, holding her hands to her breasts, guarding her secrets to royalty. The top triangular element with finely incised linear pattern above a long shaft wrapped with coiled copper. The middle lozenge, pierced through and decorated with similar linear design as above, fits into a pointed iron shaft for inserting into the earth.