Kuna Mola 1940s - Kit Kapp Collection - Ghost Ships

Description

This is the oldest mola we have posted in quite awhile! Dating from the early 1940s. It features 4 Ghost Ships, you can see the ghoulish crews below deck of each ship. One of the most popular fables in the Kuna culture involves these ghost ships that roam the seas, the entire crews all ghosts. Some really interesting shapes to the characters below deck. This piece exemplifies the raw nature of earlier molas, before the craft was as well refined. Thanks for checking out our listings and happy 4th of July! We are letting some extra rare ones go this week and next week.
The Kit Kapp Collection.
Kit Kapp was a cartographer who was hired to map the San Blas Islands in 1960. He quickly fell in love with the Kuna people and their art, and organized numerous lengthy expeditions to the islands over an 11 year period where he purchased thousands of molas and hundreds of Kuna nuchu carvings, as well as jewelry, basketry and other artifacts. In 1972 he published the seminal book
Mola Art of the San Blas Islands,
which is still one of the best reference books on the subject. Kit died in 2014. Between 1999 and 2016 we purchased the entire remainder of the Kapp Kuna collection.