Images(3)

Roof panel

19th–20th century

Object PlaceLake Sentani, Papua Province, Indonesia

Medium/TechniqueWood

Dimensions105.41 cm (41 1/2 in.)

Credit LineBequest of William E. Teel

Accession number2014.290

On View

On view

ClassificationsUnclassified

Collections

Provenance1924, said to have been acquired on Lake Sentani by Hendrik F. Tillema (b. 1870 - d. 1924) [see note 1]. Sold by a Mr. Huysman, The Hague, to Loed van Bussel (dealer), Amsterdam; about 1960/1965, sold by van Bussel to Herbert Juan (Bert) da Silva (dealer; b. 1923 – d. 1988) and his first wife, Elly da Silva, The Hague [see note 2]; sold by Elly da Silva to Steven Alpert, Pacific-American Corp., Dallas; March 1, 1994, sold by Pacific-American Corp. to William and Bertha Teel, Marblehead, MA; 2014, bequest of William Teel to the MFA. (Accession Date: February 26, 2014)

NOTES:
[1] Tillema was a retired Dutch pharmacist who assembled extensive photographs of the Dutch East Indes (now Indonesia). He is known to have made a round trip in 1924 and to have photographed a roof with similar panels at that time. See Christraud M. Geary, ed., From the South Seas: Oceanic Art in the Teel Collection (MFA: Boston, 2006), pp. 50-51, cat. no. 10. [2] Provenance information was provided by the dealer at the time of the Teels’ purchase. According to the recollection of Loed van Bussel, he had sold the piece to Bert da Silva about 30-35 years before the sale to the Teels in 1994.