This is a pre-contact, stone-carved adze from the Arapesh of the coastal Prince Alexander Mountain Range on New Guinea’s north coast. It was field collected by the photographer Malcolm Kirk (Man as Art) and later sold to the East Coast Oceanic art dealer Norman Hurst. Leo Fortess purchased the piece from Norman Hurst. The two ancestral heads are well composed with rounded, bulging foreheads, recessed eyes, pronounced noses with pierced septums and covered with an aged ochre patina. The shaft is a dark, aged brown with an old stress crack halfway down its length. The stone or clam shell adze blade is missing. The piece is 21" in length, dates to the late 19th/early 20th century. sold