A Ndoma portrait mask - Lot 12

A Ndoma portrait mask Baule culture, Ivory Coast Wood with superb patina, leather, trading nails H. 23 cm Provenance: Cazeau Collection, Paris - Cazeau Collection, Paris The Baule people are the only members of the Akan group to have widely adopted the use of masks, having come into contact with their Senoufo and Gouro neighbors during their migration to central Côte d'Ivoire in the 18th century, after fleeing what is now Ghana. From the Goli and the zoomorphic Bonu amwin, lendoma belongs to a form of representation rare in the world of masks in West Africa, where the accessory generally evokes an imaginary character, an ideal of human beauty, a totem animal - like the Goli and Bonu amwin of the Baule pantheon - or a creature as disturbing as it is indefinable. The term ndoma translates as double, that of the loved one whom this portrait embodies and to whom the sculptor and commissioner wished to pay tribute. Although the person wearing this attribute during the joyous masquerades of Mblos is traditionally a man, there are no clues as to the gender of the celebrated model, who is nonetheless often female. In the 1970s, Susan Vogel met an elderly villager and her Ndoma, carved in 1913, in the village of Kami, which was identified as "the village of masks" at the beginning of the 20th century. While it is also difficult to place this sculpture precisely in space, given the scarcity of information on old - or even more recent - collections in the vast Baule territory, it may at least be possible to do so in time: the deep patina and signs of prolonged use revealed by the mask's interior bear witness to its age. In addition, the very rare and particular configuration of the face, inscribed in a quarter-circle rather than in the traditional rounded oval of the style, refers to two other examples collected before the Second World War, those of the publisher Paul Geuthner and Léonce et Pierre Guerre - exhibited in Arles in 1954. The braided headband at the top of a very voluminous forehead, the presence of upholsterer's nails in very specific places on the face and the specially shaped mouth are other features common to these three works, which we can assume come from the same workshop. Despite its specific features, our mask meets the criteria of beauty demanded by the Ndoma and is perfectly in keeping with the "magic realism" of Baule sculpture. Bertrand Goy