Beautiful mask, characterized by particularly expressive anthropozoomorphic elements, with balanced and decidedly cubist volumes in the best tradition of Gueré sculpture.
Castanet eyes, gaping mouth with iron teeth and a prominent tongue. Several pairs of horns, studs and nails are the typical equipment of these "frightening" and ingenious masks that the skillful mastery of sculptors from this part of the Ivory Coast has been able to hand down from the mists of time to us.
Mask lived and "consecrated" , as evidenced by the ritual iron embedded in the top of the head, which has also long danced, as is evident from the significant signs of use, not the least of which is the deliberate widening of the eye slit to allow the dancer to see better
This mask, in addition to dancing, has also traveled extensively: from Arizona, USA, where it was in the collection Rebecca E. Morton Lipkin, via London, to the David Malik Gallery where it was published in a catalog in September 2016. with full-page photos and three additional ones, and to who knows how many other places before arriving in the current private collection in Lombardy.