About the lot N° 84
Title : Masque Lega Lega Mask
Provenance : Carl K. Provost (décédé en 1996), Kinshasa (RDC) et Houston (Texas)
>David Henrion, BruxellesImportante collection privée américaine,
acquis auprès de ce dernier
>Carl Provost aurait travaillé à Kinshasa au Congo dans les
années 1960 et une photo de ses archives, datant de 1970, nous montre
sa collection. Il déménagea ensuite pour le Texas, à Houston, où il
travailla en tant qu'expert et marchand , il contribua à la revue
African Arts et écrivit le livre The Valuation of Traditional Art:
Special Problems in Connoisseurship en 1980.Notes : This mask, created for the Bwami secret society, defies the classic
canon in which the faces are seen in a heart-shaped arrangement. The
offered mask has a spirit of intelligence in the emphasis on the large,
heavy-lidded eyes positioned very high upon the facial plane with a
planar and straight jawline squared off at the chin with a subtle,
serrated lip to delineate the stepped-back mouth.
>For a mask of related construction, but in ivory, see Christie's,
Paris, 6 December 2005, lot 252, from the Gerrit Wiegman collection
(1874-1964).
>As noted by Biebuyck, the masks are part of the initiation process
within the Bwami society. They are offered to members from the cache of
a deceased member or from another who graduated to another place
creating transcendent links among the initiates. The masks do not follow
ideas of transformation of the wearer, nor are they representations of
ancestors. Rather, their meaning is mutable within the presentation of
core values pitting good against evil within different ceremonies. The
iconography of the masks play a role in their meaning, but so completely
secret is this art that only the initiates will ever know the intention
of each mask (in Treasures from the Africa Museum, Tervuren, 1996,
p.376).
>Carl Provost worked in Kinshasa-Congo, apparently, in the 1960's,
and a photo from his archives, dated 1970, shows a photo of his
collection there. He later moved to Houston, Texas, where he worked as
an appraiser and dealer, he contributed to African Arts magazine and
wrote The Valuation of Traditional Art: Special Problems in
Connoisseurship, 1980.Christie's, auctioneer, Paris, FR
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Sale title : Art d'Afrique, d'Océanie et d'Amérique du Nord
Sale date : 10 Dec 2013
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Sale Reference : Live Sale
