Cassandra D'Cruz
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Lot 63
Dogon Mask, Mali
13 November 2018, 11:00 EST
New YorkUS$15,000 - US$20,000
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Dogon Mask, Mali
height 14in (35.6cm)
Provenance
George Rodrigues, New York, 1969
Private Collection
Sotheby's New York, May 18, 1992, Lot 91
American Private Collection
Kate Ezra notes, "For the dama, or final commemorative ceremony for an important Dogon elder, hundreds of masked dancers perform, creating a brilliantly colored, ever-changing spectacle of sculpture, costume, song, and dance. During his research in the 1930s Marcel Griaule documented more than seventy different mask types, representing animals, birds, human characters, and abstract concepts, which he considered to be a visual summary of the world surrounding the Dogon people. Griaule saw the dama ceremony as a stunning materialization of the loose links between contemporary Dogon society and the mythical time when masks were first acquired and used to counteract the negative effect of death (Griaule, 1938: 790). By reenacting the behavior of the mythic ancestors, the Dogon strive to restore order to their world after the disruption caused by death." (Art of the Dogon - Selections from the Lester Wunderman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, p. 73.)
Both animalistic and abstract in composition, this present superb example is deeply hollowed with a domed head and opening in the back with pierced holes for attachments; mysterious, hollowed eyes pierced through a sloping facial plane terminated with a diminutive mouth; the face divided by a triangular nose on a flat plane below an overhanging forehead; heavily encrusted brown patina with wear indicative of significant age and cultural use.
Provenance
George Rodrigues, New York, 1969
Private Collection
Sotheby's New York, May 18, 1992, Lot 91
American Private Collection
Kate Ezra notes, "For the dama, or final commemorative ceremony for an important Dogon elder, hundreds of masked dancers perform, creating a brilliantly colored, ever-changing spectacle of sculpture, costume, song, and dance. During his research in the 1930s Marcel Griaule documented more than seventy different mask types, representing animals, birds, human characters, and abstract concepts, which he considered to be a visual summary of the world surrounding the Dogon people. Griaule saw the dama ceremony as a stunning materialization of the loose links between contemporary Dogon society and the mythical time when masks were first acquired and used to counteract the negative effect of death (Griaule, 1938: 790). By reenacting the behavior of the mythic ancestors, the Dogon strive to restore order to their world after the disruption caused by death." (Art of the Dogon - Selections from the Lester Wunderman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, p. 73.)
Both animalistic and abstract in composition, this present superb example is deeply hollowed with a domed head and opening in the back with pierced holes for attachments; mysterious, hollowed eyes pierced through a sloping facial plane terminated with a diminutive mouth; the face divided by a triangular nose on a flat plane below an overhanging forehead; heavily encrusted brown patina with wear indicative of significant age and cultural use.
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