Power Figure
- L9
Wauters collection [1];
Jean Willy Mestach (1926-2014), Brussels, Belgium, after 1950 [2];
With Marc Leo Félix, Brussels, Belgium, stock no. FX97110, by March 21-May 28, 1997;
Purchased from Félix by Shirley and Barnett C. Helzberg, Jr., Mission Hills, KS, May 28, 1997-2013;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2013.
NOTES:
[1] The Wauters collection provenance is according to dealer Marc Leo Félix, in documentation provided at the time of the object’s purchase, NAMA curatorial files. This is probably Constant Joseph Antoine Wauters (b. 1889), a Belgian official who served as the provincial governor of Lusambo in the Belgian Congo from October 1933-August 1940 and afterwards as an honorary governor. In 1949, he published L’ésotérie des Noirs dévoilée about the Beneki peoples. Jean Willy Mestach mentioned Wauters in his Etudes Songye (Munich: Galerie John, 1985), p. 139, n. 1: “G. [sic] Wauters devoted 35 years (1914-1949) to his inquiries and research for his study on esoterics among the Beneki.” The confusion over Wauters’ first initial seems to come from an error in the printing of L’ésotérie des Noirs dévoilée: the author is identified correctly as “C. Wauters” on the book’s cover, but erroneously as “G. Wauters” on the title page.
[2] According to Raoul Lehuard, “la collection Mestach,” Arts d’Afrique Noire, no. 4 (1972), p. 5, Mestach began collecting in 1950.
