Über das Lot Chargen- 262
Titel : FANG MASK, EQUATORIAL GUINEA
Herkunft : Adriana and Robert Mnuchin, New YorkPace Primitive and Ancient Art, New York (invoice no. "2037")Acquired by the present owner from the above on February 11, 1983
Literature : Arts d'Afrique Noire, No. 46, 1983, p. 47 (Pace Primitive advertisement)
Anmerkung : Fang sculpture in general, and Fang masks in particular were at the core of Picasso's interest in African art during and after the creation of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). William Rubin (1984: 290) notes: "Two characteristics of Picasso's 1907 painting that persisted into 1908 - blocky symmetrical torsos and concave faces - have a decided kinship with tribal art. Physiognomies that combine a wide convex forehead and a long, tapering, concave lower face, such as we see in Woman's Head of early 1908, descend from the upper right-hand head in the Demoiselles, and also unquestionably answer to Fang sculpture. As a source of vanguard interest in the prewar years, Fang sculpture compares in importance with Kota reliquary figures. Fang masks were owned by Picasso, Braque, Derain, and other artists [...]. Fang-inspired concave facial types continue in Picasso's work well into 1908, as shown in the Sudy of Friendship, indeed, right into Three Women, whose repainted version of the following winter would mark the end of Picasso's "Africanism."
The offered lot is accompanied by a letter of expertise by the noted scholar Leon Siroto, dated February 16, 1983, according to which this "kind of mask appears to be characteristic of the region of the Bimbili river in east-central Equatorial Guinea. The style probably extends over the border into adjacent Gabon, roughly between the towns of Alen and Mongomo. The mask's features suggest stylistic affinities with the small 'arm-masks' of the same region. The region seems to be peopled mainly by the Ntumu group of the Fang.
"A precise typology of Fang masks has not yet been presented. The correspondence of this mask with the maskoids worn on the arms of the dancers might suggest that it, too, figured in dances given at least partly for public entertainment. The Fang are known to have very many secular dances that employ masks of different local names.
"Although this mask is quintessentially Fang in its style, very few similar examples have appeared in the literature so far. (I might add that I find no reason to associate masks such as this with the Ngi[l] cult, as is often asserted.)"
For a closely related mask cf. Christie's New York, May 18, 1993, lot 78.
Sotheby's, Auktionator, New York, US
🔓Keine Kreditkarte nötig.
Verkaufstitel : African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian Art Including Property from the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation
Verkaufsdatum : 13/05/2011
🔓Keine Kreditkarte nötig.
Auktionsreferenz : Live Sale
