mask
- Museum number
- Af1956,27.210
- Description
-
Register 1956:
Wooden [Gelede] dance mask.
- Production date
- 1908 (before)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 32.50 centimetres
-
Width: 20.60 centimetres
-
Depth: 17.70 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Description from William Fagg, ‘The Webster Plass collection of African Art, an illustrated catalogue’, British Museum 1953, cat.63.
Wooden Yoruba dance mask, to be worn flat on the top of the head, representing a human head with tribal marks and swept-back hair, at the front of which is represented a double-rectangle ornament said to be a mark of devotees of Orisha-Oko, the farm god, and at each side of which is a bird (though on the right-hand side only the feet remain). It is carved from a hard light-coloured wood and coloured black, blue and yellowish-brown. It is an unusually fine example of the masks of the Gelede society, which performs plays and dances for the welfare and increase of the community.
Provenance: Sir M R Menendez
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1956
- Acquisition notes
- Af1956,27.1 to 312 is the Webster Plass collection, formed by the American collectors Mr and Mrs Webster Plass in Europe, mostly between 1945 and 1952, and given to the Museum by Mrs Webster Plass in 1956.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Af1956,27.210
