Featured Please id & date two high wooden sculptures

but in fact I am here to understand.
If I had wanted to be dishonest with the buyers or with you, exploiting your knowledge, I could have removed the label before taking the pictures, I could have removed the hooks and changed the wood where the holes are, etc. ... they are so many ways to deceive. Anyway, I'm sure that the dangling label was just clinging to the sculpture erroneously, from another nearby object.
I think exactly like you. Thank you.

 

lol yes i got the point thanks a lot

 

This thread is long, but it was one of the pictures GL added after it started:



Maybe not a bindi, but what else could it be? As I said, I don't see anything stylistically to make me think this is made in India, so has nothing to do with the traditional pieces that have been shown. But I don't know, could have been quickly and crudely made there in mid 20th century or so for consumption in the west? Carvers for hire - like the indonesian made northwest native american stuff now?

In any case, I can't see it having more than home-decorative value, and a hard sell at that.

 

It looks like a knot in the wood, from a branch maybe. You can see the rest of the wood has grown in rings around it.

 

no, I can see it closely and personally and I can assert that it is manually engraved by a tool similar to an handmade punch .
The same tool is also used on the breast of the other sculpture
the purpose of the "punching" is to create a bindi on the first sculpture, and nipples on the second sculpture.
Send related photos

 

I'm not an expert, I just happened upon this site, and collect Native American stuff. But what that taught me is human nature, and trust in it (not the humans, just their nature) and to think broadly. And then test it with the minutest of detail and fact, and cross check that again. So my off the cuff observations are as follows, just to add some more ideas to this thread:

Why a French transport company? Because France owned French Polynesia. And when you look at the faces of one, it has a 'pacific island' look to the face, not consistent with Europe at all, something a carver might instinctively do or by training. Maybe that will give you a lead. That's where I'd look: formerly French Polynesia. Sound familiar (i.e., benign carvers of the 60s become the fakers today)?

The end views show “chop chop chop” on the original plank, and broken off leaving a frayed middle, and not cleaning it off after all that carving. Who does that? mass production?

The figure holds a fish in her hand, with semi circular scales punched by a chisel, and thus probably a Christian allegory, for the medieval audience. It’s not literally “holding” the fish like a set of keys. That again might relate to Templar-mania.

Hardwood reliefs of SE Asia, includes Polynesia, if “carved to [or in the likeness of]” deities, wherever they are worshipped. Can’t tell what the wood is, but seems to have swirled grain in places, more exotic than not. And the ‘bindi’ – as I read the string, my thought process resulted in the same ‘point-counterpoint’ that actually appeared “it’s a knot, no it’s not, it’s a punch, it’s a ... bindi, probably, maybe a last minute change of order by the shipper? Make it medieval this week, it's just a circle now."

And the whole thread of suggestions virtually shows the ‘composite nature’ of the carving, shipped to France somehow from somewhere.

“So I [too] can only repeat what everyone, including inh, has said: "Stick with decor with broad terms when describing. Not a traditional item." (Cited from: https://www.antiquers.com/threads/please-id-date-two-high-wooden-sculptures.32286/page-5)” But Gian has a point: he will consider it all.

 

hey @Dawnno your comment is really interesting .
Thanks so much for your precious info

 

Very gently I need to comment that people unfortunately do bid others up at auctions for the sheer fun of it. And of course other people get swept up in the bidding without really knowing what they are bidding on. But your pieces do look interesting. I would take them to someone who does know and get a final opinion.