Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas | Antiquities - 20 Feb 2024
A Chimbu zoomorphic headrest
A Chimbu zoomorphic headrest
Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea
carved from one piece as a crocodile with shell inlaid eyes, the underside with a handwritten label PILLOW. NEW GUINEA. SAVAGE COLLN. P:1080,
60cm long.
Provenance
Edwin Bentley Savage, Ringwood, Hampshire. Missionary with the London Missionary Society, working in the Pacific from 1886 - 1891.
Lieut. Gen. Augustus Henry Fox Pitt Rivers (1827 - 1900), purchased from the above in October 1894.
See The Pitt Rivers Archives, Volume 3, p.1080 for the catalogue entry and watercolour drawing of the headrest.