African Mask Tribal Face Mask Wood Hand Carved Wall Hanging Tribal Art Vintage Wooden Carved African Wood African Baule mask-2515

48/21.6-CM
Appearing nowadays during celebrations associated with the Gbagba dance, this African mask of the "Moon" type integrates all the masks associated with natural phenomena, such as the setting sun, the arcrainbowand the moon, and "warms up" the scene before larger masks appear. This unusual circular mask, presenting several intertwined faces, is also surmounted by a statuette sculpted in the round. Smooth, satiny, black-brown patina,residual kaolin encrustations. The African art of the Baoulé, an Akan group established in the south-east of Côte d'Ivoire, includes a wide range of masks renowned for their quality, finesse and symmetry. On the one hand, these African masks transposing the main features of the face of a very beautiful young girl or a remarkable man, "maskportraits", which were exhibited during particularly theatrical events where women played a majorrole, the other masks of conjuration and initiation, intervening during ceremonies which were forbidden to them. Sacred masks, they could put theirlife in danger, or at most theirfertility.