Additional information
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Unusual Mongo Figure
This figure was collected in 1971 in Kinshasa by then USAID financial development advisor to Zaire, Robert Keating. At the time Keating was a friend of the Kinshasa Museum’s director Frere Joseph Cornet with whom Keating’s wife, Virginia Keating, worked as a volunteer cataloging acquisitions. Keating went on to become US ambassador to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands as well as World Bank president. He passed away in 2012 leaving his collection to his surviving family. While the pose of this figure is known from the region figures of this scale and type are exceedingly rare. As the Keatings never bought African objects without first clearing them with Frere Cornet this handsome sculpture had already passed some notable vetting before being exported into the United States around 1972 when the Keatings returned to their home in Georgetown.
15″
