Asmat War Shield

A long Berber necklace, hand-crafted with stone beads and wool, with a round filigree silver accent. Morocco, early 20th Century. Green and blue amazonite, red coral, glass and sto...

A model of a spirit dugout canoe, from the Asmat village in New Guinea. A replica of the large canoes they use for transportation and fishing, this smaller model is hand-carved in ...

A monumental, rare and important Oceanic Papuan Asmat People tribal carved war shield from the first half of the 20th century, collected from the coast of the headhunting tribe in Papua New Guinea, a Provincial Indonesian island in the mid 20th century. Among the Asmat, war shields are the most powerful symbolic element of a warrior's equipment, and have many layers of meaning. Traditionally, they were functional items used to protect warriors in battle by deflecting an enemy's spears and arrows. The carved and painted images on the surface of the shields were also intended to frighten the enemy and symbolize the power of the ancestors. Ancestral imagery appears on multiple forms of Asmat art...

Asmat, Papua Province, Indonesia, Late 19th century Provenance: - Collection Rinck Hollnberger, Munich (purchased in the 1980s or 1990s)