An ancient and very rare male cult statuette with a braided headdress falling to the back, a hole in the abdomen and a deep summit cavity. According to notes written in Mr. V.'s notebook, this sculpture was found in the southwest of Lega country, in Kasongo country, in a village close to the Nonda chiefdom. It was brought to Monsieur V. with the information that it had been abandoned, consistent with the condition of its very old patina, and that it had previously been used for therapeutic rites. Unclassifiable, incomparable to any other, its hairstyle immediately recalls the art of the Kalanga and Tabwa peoples further south-east in Lega country, but Kasongo art does indeed feature this type of hairstyle falling back, which would confirm its origin. On the other hand, the sculpture of his body, angular and well-paced, and even more so that of his face, with its beautiful heart-shaped concave volume ending in a mouth that is also very well sculpted, recalling the style of certain Byeri Fang Ntumu from Gabon, is much more reminiscent of Lega art, reminding us of the venerable ivory mask in the Menil Collection in Houston ; which mask, also discovered in south-west Lega country, and whose mouth is so evocative, is also attributed in 1984 without any certainty to the Zimba, Bango Bango, or even the Hemba, in the catalog (n° 417 pages 281 and 381) of the Grand Palais exhibition: La Rime et La Raison. A final detail is the metal plates embedded in the wood to mark the eyes of our statuette, whose shape and technique are reminiscent of the carved eye notches on a Lega ivory statuette in the collections of the Tervuren Museum (inv. no. 74.21.4). We may one day discover the precise origin of this sculpture, another marvel and great rarity in Mr. V.'s collection, but for the moment we remain suspended like the M'bolé statues, whose attitude is also somewhat reminiscent of our own. Kasongo, Léga, or Bango Bango (or surrounding people), Maniema, Democratic Republic of Congo 19th century Wood, metal, with visible cracks (old breakage), slight age cracks, beautiful age oxidation of the wood and important remnants of an old crusty patina. H. 29.5 cm Provenance : Acquired in Bukavu in 1956 or 1957 by Mr. V., territorial administrator in Maniema (former Belgian Congo) from 1952 to 1959.