À propos du lot
n° 46
Titre : Masque Douala
Provenance : Collecté par Dr. Ernst Esch (1870-avant 1951), géologue participant Ã
la Deutsche Kolonialverwaldung (1906)
>Rudi Vock, Allemagne, acquis de la veuve du Dr. Esch en 1951Importante
collection privbée américaine, acquis auprès de ce dernierNotes : Duala masks are extremely rare, with very few having been produced and
the tradition long-ago abandoned. The only related mask remaining in
private hands is the celebrated example in the Barbier-Mueller
Collection, Geneva (inv. no. 1018-2), acquired by Josef Mueller before
1939.
>Only a handful of masks of related quality are found in museum
collections: Linden Museum, Stuttgart, see, Fagg, W. African Sculpture,
Washington, D.C., 1970:136, #167, Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, inv. no. MVVR
15454 (before 1909), Museum für Völkerkunde, Leipzig, Germany, inv.
no. Maf 17.474 (before 1910), and Niederschsishes Landesmuseum,
Hannover, Germany, inv. no. NLM IV2392 (acquired in 1895), for another,
see also Dank, Kaiser Wilhelm, Deutschland als Kolonialmacht: Dreissig
Jahre deutsche Kolonialgeschichte, 1914, plate 640/1 (Ross Archives of
African Images). [raai.library.yale.edu]).
>According to Kecskesi in her discussion of the closely related mask
from the Barbier-Mueller Collection (Arts of Africa and Oceania.
Highlights from the Musée Barbier-Mueller, musée Barbier-Mueller &
Hazan (eds.), 2007: p.187):
>'The culture of the Duala, a coastal people, is dominated by the
proximity of the sea, which distinguishes them in many respects from the
inland peoples. The main characteristic of the art of their masks is the
horned animal (buffalos and marsh antelopes) depicted in polychromed
wood.Although these nyatti masks were worn horizontally on the head,
like the groups inland, they have their own specific characteristics: a
flat outline instead of rounded forms, extremely stylised features
evoking animals in a geometric style, and instead of the habitual black
they are polychromed black, white and red.
>This specimen of a mask tradition abandoned a long time ago was
executed with extreme care. The artist had a distinctive sense of
compositional contrast: the trapezoid face, whose elongation is
emphasised by the median line, contrasts with the roundness of the
powerful horns. The artist, a master of his art, was probably working
for the society called ekong (ekongolo). Secret, elitist and still
active today, it is composed above all of respected and wealthy men
belonging to the ruling class, and one of its tasks is to seek out and
punish magicians causing harm or threatening the community and its
well-being.
>Eyewitness accounts by Buchner and Zintgraff (Buchner 1884, Zintgraff
1887, cited in Krieger et al. 1960) state that this bovid mask was used
above all during rituals - for example the burial of a member of the
community - to scare off people who were not initiates. The bovid masks
of Oku, in the Grassland region of Cameroon have the same aggressive
role, which is emphasized in Duala masks by the pointed steel tongue.'
While there is little specific information regarding Dr. Esch and
African art, he is mentioned for his work as a geologist, and was in
Cameroon in 1906 according to records found in the 'Mitteilungen von
Forschungsreisenden und Gelehrten aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten',
1911: Das Manenguba-Gebirge, 1:100.000, nach den Aufnahmen von
Stabsarzt Berk, Dr. Esch, Hauptmann Glauning, Prof. Dr. Hassert,
Oberleutnant Hirtler, Oberrichter Dr. Meyer, Oberleutn. Rausch,
Oberleutnant Schlosser und dem gesamten vorhandenen Material bearbeitet
von E. Lober unter Leitung von M. Moisel (MITT-SCH 1911, Karte 9), and
1906 Zeitschrift fuer Geologie. He co-authored the book: Beiträge zur
Geologie von Kamerun, Stuttgart, 1904.Christie's, Salle de vente
, Paris, FR
🔓Accès libre sans carte bancaire.
Titre de la vente : Art d'Afrique, d'Océanie et d'Amérique du Nord
Date de la vente : 10/12/2013
🔓Accès libre sans carte bancaire.
Référence de l'enchère
: Live Sale
