Beschreibung:

karanga height 53in (134.6cm) Provenance Alan Mann, London Marc and Denyse Ginzberg, New York Lance Entwistle, London and Paris American Private Collection, acquired in 1992 Considered by Christopher Roy to be the best known but most enigmatic of the tall, plank-topped masks of the Mossi northern style mask (Art of the Upper Volta Rivers, Alain and François Chaffin, Paris, 1987, p. 131), the mask presented here has a hollowed domed face surmounted by a pair of tall, elegantly curved and slender parallel planks, each decorated with a raised triangular pattern and joined at the top and bottom, becoming a crest between the triangular-shaped, mysterious hollowed eyes; pierced around the edges in back for attachment; heavily encrusted dark brown and deep red patina showing signs of significant age and cultural use.