Zande or Mangbetu Workshop Attribution, Northern Democratic Republic of Congo or South Sudan, Tall Carved Limba or Possibly Bilinga Column, Mid-20th Century

Zande or Mangbetu Workshop attribution Thought to be Northern Democratic Republic of Congo or South Sudan Tall Carved Hardwood Column Mid-20th Century A tall and intricately carved hardwood column associated with the sculptural traditions of the Zande and Mangbetu peoples of the northern Congo basin. Carved from a single section of dense tropical hardwood and rising from a natural root-form base, the work demonstrates the region’s characteristic interplay between structural mass, symbolic imagery, and surface ornamentation. The column presents a continuous arrangement of carved motifs executed in high and low relief, including stylised human faces, avian elements, reptilian forms, butterflies, vegetal devices and repeated geometric patterning. These motifs are arranged in a vertical programme that wraps fully around the cylindrical body of the sculpture, creating an uninterrupted sculptural field. The organisation of these forms, combined with the sectional fluting evident in several registers, reflects the broader Zande and Mangbetu aesthetic emphasis on rhythmic surface articulation and the integration of anthropomorphic and natural imagery into a unified totemic structure. Although works of this type vary in function across the northern Congo region, they are frequently associated with architectural or quasi-architectural contexts, where carved posts and columns act as markers of status, guardianship, memory or ancestral alignment. The combination of human and animal imagery, especially when integrated into a continuous vertical format, is consistent with mid-twentieth-century workshop production that both adapted and reinterpreted earlier ceremonial and decorative carving traditions for local and occasionally export audiences. The carving demonstrates confident workmanship, particularly in the handling of the repeated facial motifs and the deep vertical relief, though the piece aligns more closely with workshop practice than with the finely delineated ritual carvings produced for court or elite use. Comparable mid-century Zande and Mangbetu carved posts of similar scale and complexity are documented across private and institutional collections, where they are frequently interpreted as hybrid forms combining decorative, symbolic and communal narrative elements. This example, at 156 cm, sits within the upper range of such sculptural columns and offers a significant visual presence suitable for both ethnographic and contemporary interior contexts.