Description: An exceptional and exquisite Penu, or stone pounder, elegantly carved with cross-bar handle above the gradually tapered rounded pounding surface, in dense black (probably maupiti) stone with a glossy patina. This is a rare type in polished stone.
Tahiti, 18th century

The stone food pounder is a widespread and familiar item of Polynesian material culture. Used in the preparation of breadfruit and other foodstuffs, many pounders are both functional objects and expertly crafted works. As such, they are items found in museum collections around the world and in publications about Pacific art.

Provenance : Loed Van Bussel, Amsterdam

References: : - Kaeppler, Adrienne, Artificial Curiosities, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, 1978, fig. 263 (cat. no. 118), for a very similar
cross-bar pounder collected on Cook's Voyages, formerly in the Leverian Museum and now in the Museum für Völkerkunde,
Vienna.
- Hooper, Steven, Pacific Encounters - Art & Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, British Museum
Press, 2006, fig. 143.
- José Garanger, Pilons Polynésiens, Paris, Muséum d'Histoire naturelle, Musée de l'Homme, Paris, 1967, page 41, fig. n° 32


References:
Kaeppler, Adrienne, Artificial Curiosities, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, 1978.
Hooper, Steven, Pacific Encounters - Art & Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, British Museum Press, 2006.