A Fine and Rare Fang Mask, Gabon

of hollowed form, with four blackened horizontal incised bands on the neck beneath the protruding facial plane, the jaw line leading to the C-shaped ears, protruding over the mouth the conical nose bisecting the wide slit eyes, surmounted by a high forehead beneath a flat crown with nine holes for the insertion of feathers, the whole decorated with blackeened insized motifs; fine and varied medium brown patina.

Olivier le Corneur, Paris
Acquired from Galerie Le Corneur et Roudillon, Paris, mid 1960s

Washington, D.C., Museum of African Art, 1971-1973
Washington, D.C., Museum of African Art, African Art in Washington Collections, May 25, 1972 - January 1, 1973

Museum of African Art 1972: 38, cat. 303

The Silbermann mask belongs to a small group of Fang masks that is distinguished by a heart-shaped facial plane, a flat crown (sometimes with holes for the insertion of feathers), and a curved frill-like extension following the neck of the dancer. Masks of this type were collected between 1907 and 1909 by Günter Tessmann (b. April, 2 1884 – d. November, 15 1969) on behalf of the Lübeck Museum für Völkerkunde during the famed "Pangwe-expedition." As a result, the city acquired a sizable Fang collection which today numbers 150 objects. Tessmann's 700-page monograph "Les Pahouins. Monographie ethnologique d'une tribu d'Afrique de l'ouest" was first published in Berlin in 1913. As a summary of the results of the "Pangwe-expedition" it is an important historic document of the highest interest. For substantial excerpts from the text see Musée Dapper (1991: 167-312).

For a closely related mask by the same hand formerly in the Egon Guenther Collection, Johannesburg, see Sotheby's, New York, November 18, 2000, lot 82. Another mask in the same style but covered with a layer of kaolin and decorated with metal tacks is in the collection of the city of Lübeck, Germany. This mask shows an almost identical treatment of jaw, nose, forehead and crown and is comparable also for the incised decoration on the temples and on the frill-like protrusion. Related in style, however without frill-like protrusion, is also the famous mask formerly in the collection of George Braque and photographed in the artist's studio in 1911, cf. Musée Dapper (1991: 84).