A very rare male cult statuette of the finest style, as much for its face with its intense gaze accentuated by two upholsterer's nails applied over its engraved eyes, as for the extraordinarily dynamic and truly "cubist" rhythm of the body sculpture, reminiscent of the Lega neighborhood from which the Zimba are said to have borrowed the rites of the Bwami association. This statuette stands out as one of the finest in the already very limited corpus, and appears to be by the same hand as the Zimba statuette taken as a reference by Marc Leo Felix to illustrate the Zimba group on the map he edited in collaboration with cartographer Charles Meur in 1989. See : Nineteenth Century Ethnic Map of Zaire, C.Meur and M.Felix, 1989 Zimba, Democratic Republic of Congo Nineteenth century Wood, nails, remnants of plant resin, old cracks, minor old accidents and minor missing parts, very fine old patina. H. 42.5 cm Provenance : Acquired by Mr. V. (by exchange with a drum) in the Bakwanga region in 1957