Lot 243
Central Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kwese Mbala, ca. 20th century CE. A large, rounded, wooden helmet mask, known as a mbala, centered around a small, heart-shaped face. The narrow eye slits are set inside bulging eyelids; the nose is diminutive and triangular, the mouth slightly opened, with white paint marking the face. The wide head has two oval ears, encircled by white pigment that extends around the back of the head; each ear has a dab of a bright lavender/blue pigment in its center. Around the forehead and below the hairline is a band of dark, woven cloth that seems to have once been red but has faded/aged to dark brown. The wood atop that is carved in a huge, segmented crested coiffure with incised circular patterns randomly spaced across it, giving it a textured appearance. Around the base are drilled perforations with small pieces of raffia left in them. Comes with custom stand. Size: 10" L x 8.25" W x 11.5" H (25.4 cm x 21 cm x 29.2 cm); height on stand: 16.15" (410.2 cm).
When worn, this mask would have had a huge quantity of grassy fibers tied through those perforations, creating a wild, unruly appearance of long, dried raffia engulfing the wooden mask - see, for example, item 2009.118 at the Art Institute of Chicago. The mbala mask (which is very similar to another style of mask known as a kholuka), is part of a coming-of-age ritual for young men and is worn atop the head as part of a full costume that, along with the raffia, drapes down over the body, disguising the wearer's true identity. Sometimes the masks will have other attachments of wood - a bird, a house, etc. - that emphasize a lesson about the right way to live in society (on this mask, see the two perforations drilled in the top of the head - this is presumably where such an item was attached).
Provenance: private Boston, Massachusetts, USA collection; ex-Christie's Paris, France June 16, 2009, Lot 107; ex-Pace Primitive (Pace Inventory #53-0948), New York, USA; ex-Patrick Claes, Brussels, Belgium collection
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#122566
- Condition: Expected surface wear with very small areas of loss to the paint. The tiny remaining pieces of raffia around the base are fragmentary and fragile.
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