Ibibio, Eket, Nigeria, early 20th century
Wood
Height 9 1/2 inches (24.1 cm)
Provenance: Tristan Tzara, Paris, with collection label on the interior; Morton Dimondstein, Los Angeles, California; John Rich, Beverly Hills, California; Joshua Dimondstein, Los Angeles, California; Jeffery Clinton, Carmel, California
The face is carved as a long oval with a high domed forehead, a narrow ridged nose, and pierced eyes set beneath softly modeled brows, the whole worked to an even dark finish that gathers light across the cheekbones. A wide flat crown sits above the head like a low cap, its vertical edge cut with a continuous band of chevrons that establishes the architectural silhouette of the piece. Three short horizontal projections flank each cheek, and the mouth opens on a row of squared teeth with the lips drawn back, the tense expression associated with Ekpo society masking.
Masks of this kind belonged to the Ekpo society among the Eket, an Ibibio group of the lower Cross River region in southeastern Nigeria, where masquerade enforced social order and marked the passage of the dead into the ancestral world. Dark surfaces carried ancestral association, and the blackened finish here reads lighter across the brow and the high points of the cheeks. The interior retains a collection label from Tristan Tzara, whose Paris holdings of African and Oceanic material were assembled across the first decades of the twentieth century.
Tristan Tzara, 1896 to 1963, was a Romanian and French poet and one of the founders of Dada, which he helped launch at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916 before settling in Paris. He was among the earliest European writers to engage seriously with African art and oral literature, presenting African poems at Dada events and building a substantial collection of African and Oceanic objects at his Paris apartment. His collection is documented in the literature on the early European reception of African art, and pieces bearing his labels have passed into museum and major private holdings. Morton Dimondstein, a Los Angeles painter and sculptor, and his son Joshua Dimondstein, a Los Angeles dealer in African art, are both known for their work with material of this region.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Ibibio, Eket, Nigeria, early 20th century
Wood
Height 9 1/2 inches (24.1 cm)
Provenance: Tristan Tzara, Paris, with collection label on the interior; Morton Dimondstein, Los Angeles, California; John Rich, Beverly Hills, California; Joshua Dimondstein, Los Angeles, California; Jeffery Clinton, Carmel, California
The face is carved as a long oval with a high domed forehead, a narrow ridged nose, and pierced eyes set beneath softly modeled brows, the whole worked to an even dark finish that gathers light across the cheekbones. A wide flat crown sits above the head like a low cap, its vertical edge cut with a continuous band of chevrons that establishes the architectural silhouette of the piece. Three short horizontal projections flank each cheek, and the mouth opens on a row of squared teeth with the lips drawn back, the tense expression associated with Ekpo society masking.
Masks of this kind belonged to the Ekpo society among the Eket, an Ibibio group of the lower Cross River region in southeastern Nigeria, where masquerade enforced social order and marked the passage of the dead into the ancestral world. Dark surfaces carried ancestral association, and the blackened finish here reads lighter across the brow and the high points of the cheeks. The interior retains a collection label from Tristan Tzara, whose Paris holdings of African and Oceanic material were assembled across the first decades of the twentieth century.
Tristan Tzara, 1896 to 1963, was a Romanian and French poet and one of the founders of Dada, which he helped launch at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916 before settling in Paris. He was among the earliest European writers to engage seriously with African art and oral literature, presenting African poems at Dada events and building a substantial collection of African and Oceanic objects at his Paris apartment. His collection is documented in the literature on the early European reception of African art, and pieces bearing his labels have passed into museum and major private holdings. Morton Dimondstein, a Los Angeles painter and sculptor, and his son Joshua Dimondstein, a Los Angeles dealer in African art, are both known for their work with material of this region.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
