A very rare mask of the Fang, with oval-round face part, coloured in white by means of kaolin, and a ‘helmet’ dyed black and brown with four projections. Everything carved from one piece of wood. The protruding, dark dyed eyebrows, above the dark, slit eyes, and the small, closed mouth below create a heart-shaped form. Linear incised decorative scarification marks on the forehead and a double line from the forehead above down to the bridge of the long, flat nose are almost obscured by the white kaolin coating. Both cheeks display round decorative scarification marks with cross-shaped lines. With a headdress made of a bundle of feathers, inserted into fine wickerwork of plant fibres. A very rare piece, with colour scuffing in the kaolin white due to age, appropriate patina (also on the back, on the inside) and in very good condition.
Height: 69 cm (in total); 39 cm (the mask alone); width: 23 cm. First half of the 20th century. (ME)

Provenance: Private collection, Brussels. Pursuant to information supplied by the consigner, the present item has been in Austrian private ownership since the 1960s.

Lit.: ‘Ancestral Art of Gabon’ by Louis Perrois, p. 174/175, ill. 35.