A wooden mask - Winiama - Nigeria (No reserve price)

Winiama Mask - Ouri, Burkina Faso, incl stand. The wooden mask combines a squat, zoomorphic face with two soaring, leaf-like curved horns. Protruding eyes adorned with small inlays, the strong nose, and the wide-open, toothed mouth lend it a tense, almost aggressive presence. The two asymmetrically staggered horns are particularly striking: incised lines, grid patterns, and concentric circles cover their surfaces. A series of holes along the mask's edge served to attach the costume. The dark, earthy surface reveals remnants of older pigmentation and clear signs of wear. The Winiama (Winyé) live in central Burkina Faso; the village of Ouri is particularly well-documented for its mask traditions thanks to Christopher D. Roy's fieldwork. There, masks embody spirits of the wilderness, whose relationships to family and community are traced back to mythical encounters of the ancestors with untamed nature. They appear, among other things, at initiations, funerals, and communal purification ceremonies. Winiama masks are characterized by highly abstracted animal forms and single or paired, towering horns; the depicted creature therefore need not be zoologically identifiable. Literature (selection) Christopher D. Roy: Art of the Upper Volta Rivers. Paris 1987. Christopher D. Roy / Thomas G. B. Wheelock: Land of the Flying Masks. Munich 2007. Exhibitions Alain-Michel Boyer: Les Arts d’Afrique. Paris 2008. Some of the information and photos are generated by artificial intelligence and is based on published sources from the fields of ethnography, archaeology, and art history documents. All information and photos are protected by copyright. Inv. No. MAZ29366 Informant: Petit Coulibaly

Estimate:$309.02

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