Baule mask - Lot 20

Baule mask Ivory Coast Wood H. 32 cm Provenance : - Jany Proust Collection, Tours - Fraysse sale, May 3, 2012, lot 76 - Private collection, Paris Interesting Ndoma portrait mask representing the face of a personality - man or woman - whom admirers wished to honor. This practice of representing a real, identified person is unique in Africa. The mask was exhibited at daytime entertainment festivals open to all, with the dancer (always a man) accompanied in his dance by the person represented, dressed in his finest finery. Here, our mask shows a handsome face with a round mouth that opens to let out a breath or a word. The face retains traces of the many copper plates and nails that once decorated it. It is surmounted by a triple-shelled headdress, itself dominated by a sort of diadem forming a bow or an inverted crescent moon.