Description : Mask amawalu multiple views available! Nigeria, Ibo-Afikbo wood, partly shiny patina, polychromic paint, of abstract form, broad slit eyes flanking an open-worked forehead-nose-ridge, surmounted by a high towering projection with triangular piercings, painted with dotted pattern, pierced around the rim, min. dam., slight traces of abrasion, on metal base, the Afikpo, an eastern Ibo group who live on the Cross River, comprise a distinctive substyle within the diverse Ibo style range. Their masks, carved with elaborate patterns and painted in bold colors, create a multitude of characters for their popular okumkpa masquerade and other dramatizations. This strikingly abstract mask is a carver's tour de force, combining a lively play of geometry with a bird's beak. This may be a hornbill's beak, since hornbills are such significant birds as obdurate sentinels standing at the cusp of our world and the otherworld, but, as likely as not, the mask more general reference to birdness. The birdness may be a general reference to what birds represent-e.g. an ability to fly between earth and heaven -, rather than a more specific one to a particular sort of bird. H: 60,5 cm, (5434/028) H: 23.8 inch Provenance Alan Potamkin, Miami, Florida, USA Published in Kahan, Leonard u.a., Surfaces, colors, substances, and ritual applications on African sculpture, Indiana 2009, plate 39 Literature Robbins, Warren M., Ingram Nooter, Nancy, African Art in American Collections, o.O. 1989, p. 261, ill. 687 Roberts, Allen F., The shape of belief, San Francisco 1997, p. 88, ill. 61
Price: 0.00 USDIt's free to register now to view!
Estimate (low-high) : 30000 EUR-60000 EURIt's free to register now to view!
