Mask (je or lo)
Artist Unidentified
20th century, 1950–2000
Object PlaceCote d'Ivoire
Medium/TechniqueWood and pigment
DimensionsOverall: 41 x 16 x 8 cm (16 1/8 x 6 5/16 x 3 1/8 in.)
Credit LineGift of Geneviève McMillan in memory of Reba Stewart
Accession number2009.2682
On View
Not on viewClassificationsSculpture
Collections
This mask from the 1960s shares stylistic characteristics with older peices once used in funerary contexts. It is rather flat, with an undecorated forehead and arched hairline. Bird effigies enhance the coiffure. Newer works, like this, can be related to particular workshops, and went through "fashions." This mask may have originated in a workshop in Abidjan, where the National Museum employed artists to carve masks from at least the early1960s onwards.
Inscriptionssmall white adhesive label on R side of face: "Bao2"; label inside back: "41"; paper taped inside back: "Mask Baule Tribe"Provenance1985, sold by an unidentified African merchant, Cambridge, MA, to Geneviève McMillan (b. 1922 - d. 2008), Cambridge, MA; 2008, to the Geneviève McMillan and Reba Stewart Foundation, Cambridge; 2009, gift of the Geneviève McMillan and Reba Stewart Foundation to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 17, 2009)
