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Premium BLANCHET & Associés
227
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Bété/Wè mask, Ivory Coast, wood, H.
See original version (French)
227
-
Bété/Wè mask, Ivory Coast, wood, H.
See original version (French)
Estimate €800 - €1,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Bété/Wè mask, Ivory Coast, wood, H.24cmxW.15cm. Tasked with imposing peace during internal conflicts, or coming "to mingle with the combatants during battle, throwing arrows or assegais intended less for the real adversaries than for the spirits that have come to support them", these masks imposed their terrifying figure, materialising the hostile forces of the forest. The aesthetics of force, whose data "brings out the unknown rather than ordering the known" (Meurant, Ubangi, 2008, p. 141), is matched here by the masterly architecture of the forms and the profusion of metal nail heads that light up the surface. Around the tubular eyes and open mouth (the only figurative elements of the mask), a network of bands develops - undulating in the lower half of the face and straight in the upper part - which, forming a second mask on the sculpted face, masterfully illustrates the plastic inventiveness of the sculptors of this region.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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