Fine early aboriginal and oceanic art auction

Place: Tea House, Royal Randwick Racecourse, Alison Road, Randwick, Sydney, Australia
Preview: 27h and 28th August from 11am to 5pm and 29th August from 11am to 4.30pm

Contact: mail@mossgreen.com.au

Catalogue: online catalogue

About Mossgreen Auctions:

Mossgreen Auctions specialises in single owner auctions for collections covering fine art and antiques. Services include auctions held in our stylish multi-level building at 310 Toorak Road South Yarra, to on-site auctions at the owner’s property or staged events in hired premises tailored to suit the collection.

With nearly 25 years auction experience with International and Australian auction houses, Mossgreen Auctions director Paul Sumner is available to advise and personally manage the sale of your collection.

We offer realistic vendor terms and personalised and imaginative marketing strategies that ensure the very best results.

Auction statistics prove that collections often fetch much higher prices when kept together as a collection.

Mossgreen Auctions has handled many of the most significant single-owner collections in recent years including:

The Ray Mitchell and Julian Sterling auction in February 2007 where the sale total was an Australian record for any antiques auction at 4.4 million against a pre-sale estimated total of 2.1 million.

The company holds many individual Australian art auction records, including the highest price for any living Australian artist-John Olsen’s “Love in the kitchen”- 1969, sold for $1.089 million and the auction record for Australia’s most acclaimed artist- Sir Sidney Nolan, when the company sold- Kelly Outlaw 1955 for $1.45 million

Mossgreen Auctions has averaged in excess of 90% sold by lot and well over 120% by value, averaged out over all of its single owner auctions. These statistics are well beyond the accepted market averages of 70-80% for other auctions.

If you are looking to sell a collection,then prior to breaking up the collection elsewhere, consult the name you can trust- Mossgreen.

Mossgreen also holds two important multi-vendor Australian art auctions per year, two Fine antiques and jewellery auctions, and one Important Asian Art auction per year. These auctions offer superbly presented and fully researched catalogues coupled with imaginative marketing and the same personalised approach that is the company’s signature.

‘Interior Decorator’ Auctions are held every two months at the company’s secondary auction location- 94 High street Prahran. These sales encompass the mid- value and collectors markets and cover all fields from antiques to quality contemporary furnishings, as well as Asian art, jewellery and Australian and International art.

Campanya Aa...

Ara imaginem que tens un accident. Creues el carrer sense mirar i et fa volar un cotxe. Agafes una bicicleta del bicing per a baixar tot el Torrent de l’Olla i t’adones massa tard que és una d’aquelles moltes amb frens ineficients. O bé camines tranquil•lament per una vorera i d’un balcó et cau un test al cap. O podries tenir un accident de trànsit.

Sigui com sigui, les probabilitats de patir un accident són força elevades. Només el 2007, més de tres milions de persones van patir a Espanya alguna mena d’emergència, entre accidents domèstics, d’oci, laborals o de trànsit. Per això, tal com deia el programa de televisió, “Más vale prevenir”...

I és que en aquesta època de les telecomunicacions, quan els serveis d’emergències atenen a algun afectat, els seria molt fàcil comunicar a alguna persona propera a la víctima què li ha passat i en quin estat es troba. Però tot i que l’afectat dugui a sobre el telèfon mòbil, es presenta un dilema interessant per al personal d’assistència. A qui trucar?

Quants noms i telèfons hi poden haver en una memòria telefònica? Es fa difícil de dir. Jo en el meu en tinc 400 justos. A quin telèfon haurien de trucar si em passés alguna cosa? Està clar que a les llistes de contactes dels telèfons, les persones no hi posen: MARIT, MULLER, FILL, FILLA,... Aquests solen estar introduïts amb el nom de pila. Però, i si es tracten d’amics? El que sí que sol dur la gent és PARE i MARE, i si molt m’apures, Tiet Tal i Tieta Qual... Però i si resulta que són familiars amb qui la víctima, que pot estar inconscient amb un nyanyo al cap produït per un míssil de terrissa no s’hi ha parlat des de fa anys?

Ara farà un any, la Creu Roja i el Ministeri van presentar una campanya de sensibilització anomenada Aa (d’”Aviseu a...”). L’objectiu era conscienciar a la població sobre la necessitat d’afegir al seu telèfon mòbil una nova entrada que comencés amb les lletres Aa seguides del nom del contacte. Així, si el telèfon encara és operatiu després de l’accident, els serveis d’emergència localitzen el primer nom que els surt a l’Agenda de Contactes i saben que és la persona a qui han de trucar.

Jo no em sento desvinculat del món on visc. Miro la tele i llegeixo el diari. Potser sí que no assíduament, però tinc la meva ració... I en canvi ahir quan em van explicar que hi havia hagut aquesta campanya, em vaig replantejar seriosament investigar amb profunditat si per una estranya circumstància havia estat jo qui havia rebut el test al cap i m’havia quedat inconscient durant tota la durada de la campanya. Ni em sonava ni recordava haver vist cap anunci ni fulletó...
Que la campanya s’hagués dut amb el c*l (com ja acostuma a ser tradició en aquest tipus d’iniciatives) no treu que sigui un consell molt útil. He agafat el telèfon i he començat a teclejar. Ara ja tinc 403 contactes. Pràctic, oi?

The Duduk and its Music

© Samvel Amirkhanyan

An Armenian oboe, the Duduk accompanies popular songs and dances and is played at social events such as weddings, anniversaries and funerals. The Armenian Duduk is distinctive in construction and performance technique and characterized by a warm and soft timbre.
The project aims to safeguard traditional duduk music in the difficult modern social, cultural and political context in Armenia. The main components of the project are: (i) training and transmission of skills and know-how; (ii) documentation and inventorying; and (iii) public awareness-raising. The planned activities include organizing master classes in a number of provincial schools, publishing a Practical manual for players, makers, and students of the duduk, compiling an Inventory of the Armenian Duduk Tradition and organizing open-air concerts. The project is intended to improve the context in which the main bearers of the tradition – the duduk players – evolve, and to give rise to a renewed interest in duduk music among the Armenian public.
Inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (originally proclaimed in 2005)
© Text: UNESCO

The Burial of Emperor Haile Selassie - Photographs by Peter Marlow

The Burial of Emperor Haile Selassie: Photographs by Peter Marlow

22 April – 21 November 2010, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, United Kingdom

©Pitt-Rivers Museum

When Emperor Haile Selassie was finally buried in Addis Ababa in 2000, twenty-five years after his death, only a few European journalists were there to witness it. Renowned Magnum photographer Peter Marlow was among them. The 21 photographs in this exhibition document a remarkable event in recent Ethiopian history, one that provoked fresh debate about both Haile Selassie and Ethiopia’s troubled political history. Marlow’s photographs explore the tensions between royal, state and religious hierarchies that surrounded the ceremony, as well as more personal expressions of loyalty by some of the participants.

Ndome kikuyu dance shield

Name: Ndome dance shield

Origin: Kikuyu people, Muranga, Fort Hall, Kenya, Africa

Date: Collected by J. G. Le Breton, Given to the Museum in 1933

Museum: Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK

Comments:

This leaf-shaped, wooden dance shield is known as ndome and is used in boys’ coming-of-age ceremonies among the Kikuyu people of central Kenya. On the reverse (shown here on the right) it has an arm grip carved from the solid and is decorated with carved zigzag designs painted in red, black and white.

The rite of passage into adulthood for both boys and girls is important to Kikuyu culture. The initiations of both sexes are separate affairs but both involve circumcision and the use of shields. For boys, the ceremony is called Irua and takes place between the ages of fifteen and eighteen.

First, there are a number of dances. The boys wear the ndome shields during these dances to symbolise the adult warrior status they are about to acquire. The ring on the back of the shield is worn under the left armpit, so the shield itself stands high above the head of the dancer. After the dancing comes the surgical operation itself, performed at a special ritual location known as theIteri. To preserve their family honour, the boys are expected to undergo the operation in silence, without flinching. Several boys are circumcised at once and each new set of initiates (mwanake) is considered to be a distinct age set (rika). Each rika is given a group name and its members treat each other as brothers for life, and fight together in battle.

Undergoing Irua is attractive to Kikuyu boys for a number of reasons: An uncircumcised male (no matter how old) is prevented from owning possessions, socialising with adults, fighting as a warrior for the clan, marrying, or sleeping in the Thingira - a communal house for initiated young men where initiated young women are permitted to visit.

© Photos and text: Pitt Rivers Museum