H x W x D: 24 x 16 x 11.2 cm (9 7/16 x 6 5/16 x 4 7/16 in.)
Type:
Mask
Geography:
Côte d'Ivoire
Date:
Late 19th-early 20th century
Label Text:
Baule masks depicting beautiful women (or heroic men), well-known persons, stock characters and domestic animals promote Baule concepts of ideal beauty and values. Rarer than the single face mask is the double mask portraying twins. Twins, whether identical (depicted here) or fraternal, are believed to be good luck and to share a soul. The double mask can appear with a portrait mask, which may be accompanied by the living twins or the surviving single twin, toward the end of a masquerade.
Description:
Wood, double face mask with an elaborately carved hairstyle with 6 projections at the crown. The faces are identical, with small bands of scarification on the temples, small white cone projections from the chin, very long noses and small mouths. The eyeholes are in the two center eyes.
Provenance:
Pace Primitive and Ancient Art, New York, 1976
Exhibition History:
The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection Highlights, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., May 21, 2009-June 4, 2014
African Vision: The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., February 15, 2007-March 31, 2009
For Spirits and Kings: African Art from the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1981
African Spirit Images and Identities, Pace Primitive, New York, April 24-May 29, 1976
Published References:
Jenke, Veronika. 2007. Explore! African Vision: The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection. Exhibition booklet. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, p. 27.
Kreamer, Christine Mullen, Bryna Freyer and Andrea Nicolls. 2007. African Vision: The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 162-163, no. 50.
Robbins, Warren M. and Nancy Ingram Nooter. 1989. African Art in American Collections. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, p. 177, no. 347.
Siroto, Leon. 1976. African Spirit Images and Identities. New York: Pace Editions, p. 55, no. 81.
Vogel, Susan (ed). 1981. For Spirits and Kings: African Art from the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 75-77, no. 37.
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