Amulet Figure

Tunjung Dayak, East Borneo, Indonesia
19th-early 20th c.

Provenance: Rodger Dashow collection, Boston

This wooden amulet figure is a study in restraint and elegance. The body is conceived as an elongated vertical form, the slender proportions and attenuated limbs lending the piece a striking linearity. The softly incised features, with their introspective gaze, heighten its quiet presence.

The extreme elongation of the figure is reminiscent of the modernist sculptures of Alberto Giacometti, where the stretched human form becomes a vessel of both fragility and spiritual intensity. For the Dayak, however, such amulets carried protective and mediating functions, guarding their owner from unseen forces while embodying ancestral guidance. This figure, with its stark silhouette and time-darkened surface, bridges traditional cosmology and an aesthetic language that resonates uncannily with 20th-century art.