Probably collected by Aristide Courtois (1883–1962), a French colonial administrator in Gabon, between 1910 and 1938. Courtois was responsible for collecting a large number of the Kuyu (Kebe-Kebe) heads now preserved in museum collections, as well as virtually all of the earliest known autonomous Kuyu figures.

Pierre Dartevelle (1940–2022), Brussels

Jean-Jacques Rotthier Collection (1932–2009), Brussels, then by descent

Brussels, Belgium, David Adjaye’s GEO-Graphics. Cartographie des pratiques artistiques en Afrique, passées et présentes, BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, 9 June – 26 September 2010

Bouttiaux (Anne-Marie) and Kouoh (Koyo) (eds.), David Adjaye’s GEO-Graphics. Cartographie des pratiques artistiques en Afrique, passées et présentes, Milan / Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2010, p. 257

Further reading :

Poupon (David), Étude ethnographique de la tribu Kouyou, Revue d’anthropologiee, vol. 29, 1918–1919

Amrouche (Pierre), Aristide Courtois, le brûleur de cases, Arts & Cultures, Geneva, 2006, pp. 180–189

Bénézech (Anne-Marie), La cérémonie du Djo chez les Kouyou. Essai de reconstruction d’une cosmogonie au nord du Congo-Brazzaville, Paris, 2021

This Janus figure, or Okue, was carved for use in Djo ceremonies, ritual performances that publicly reenacted Kuyu cosmogony and recounted the myth of creation. Early twentieth-century accounts by the colonial administrator Alfred Poupon identify Djo as the primordial ancestor and creator deity of the Kuyu universe. This divinity is conceived as a hybrid being—both serpent and human, male and female. The incised geometric scarifications represent the scales of this mythical serpent.

The dual-faced composition of the sculpture expresses the inherent duality of Djo. Stylistically, the figure is characterized by a rigid, self-contained posture: the head appears compressed into the shoulders, the gaze is directed outward, and the arms are closely integrated with the torso. This distinctive attitude denotes a chief or ritual specialist engaged in active communion with the ancestral realm.

This work belongs to a very small corpus of documented Kuyu Janus figures, the majority of which are now preserved in museum collections.

In 2010, the sculpture was selected for inclusion in the exhibition GEO-Graphics: A Map of Art Practices in Africa, Past and Present, curated by architect David Adjaye at BOZAR. Within the framework of the exhibition, this historic masterpiece was presented alongside contemporary works in order to demonstrate the continuity, evolution, and enduring vitality of African artistic traditions. In this respect, the sculpture may itself be understood as a Janus figure, simultaneously looking toward the past and the future.