A highlight of Tennants’ militaria and ethnographic sale in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, on October 5, is an early 19th century ‘ancestor head’, made by the Fang people of modern Gabon.
As an itinerant people, migrating from area to area throughout the regions around modern Gabon, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, the Fang were unable to build permanent grave shrines. Instead, each family kept a portable bark box filled with skulls and bones of important ancestors and a carved head or figure placed on top to guard them.
This 13in (34cm) high piece on offer is typical of Fang nlo bieri or reliquary statues. Consigned from a private collection, it is guided at £2000-3000.
Designed after the Italian racing car Alfa Romeo P2, one of the most successful racing cars of the 1920s, this tin toy model in green above is guided at £1800-2200 at Ewbank’s in Surrey on October 4.
It was made by French firm Compagnie Industrielle du Jouet (CIJ) in c.1930 and is painted with a number 2 in white and comes with Pneu Michelin treaded tyres.
ewbankauctions.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
This 12 x 7in (30 x 18cm) casket above, made from leather, beech and iron, is estimated at £2000-3000 in a sale at Mallams in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, on October 8-9.
It features cuir bouilli tooled leather decoration, depicting panels with knights and maidens, flowers and foliage, and bears traces of original paintwork.
mallams.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
On October 11, Cheffins of Cambridge will offer a Guild of Handicraft yellow metal, pearl and enamel necklace, attributed to its founder Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942).
The original design for the necklace is illustrated in a page from the Guild’s first catalogue, published in about 1895 and described as a necklace of ‘Blue Enamel set with Pearls’.
Offered in its original fitted case, it is guided at £2000-4000.
cheffins.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
