Important and Rare Yup'ik Wood Mask

of deeply hollowed form, depicting an unidentified creature, possibly a caribou, in profile, carved with an open grimacing mouth hinged at the jaw, inset with wood pegs as teeth, with flaring nostril, exaggerated curving septum, and pierced oval eye rim, surmounted by a large tapering insert resembling an ear, decorated overall with white pigment; the periphery drilled with a series of small holes for feather inserts.

Collected by Adams Hollis (A.H.) Twitchell near Bethel, Kuskokwim River, Alaska, from the Napaskiagamut Eskimo 
Heye Foundation, 9/3408
Deaccessioned to Julius Carlebach, New York, October 1944
Acquired in March 1982 from Jonathan Holstein, New York City

Mask in very good original condition with typical wear for its age. This includes minor surface abrasion and fine hairline splitting, particularly on the snout of the animal, that is both typical and stable. The mask has been displayed in a private home but untouched for many years and there are areas of accumulated dust. The teeth, and ear, are plugged with wood and should be handled with care as they can be easily removed. Tool markings range from rough to very fine both on the front and back of the mask.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

A.H. Twitchell was born in Jamaica, Vermont in 1872 and moved to Chilkat in 1892, where he tried his hand at mining. By 1909, he had established a fur trading and merchandising business called the Kuskokwim Commercial Company in Bethel, Alaska. He subsequently became an influential trader and collector of Eskimo material culture. According to Ann Fienup-Riordan, 1996, pp: 249-257, "The masks collected by the Kuskokwim trader Adams Hollis Twitchell are among the most complex and elaborate ever collected." Twitchell sent the Heye Foundation thirty-five masks, thirty-two of which were deaccessioned between 1944 and 1969. The New York art dealer Julius Carlebach purchased twenty-six of these masks between 1944 and 1946. He sold them to collectors around the world including surrealist artists Andre Breton, Robert Matta, Yves Tanguy and Robert Lebel (ibid, 206).

For a discussion of Eskimo masks and their uses see Ray, 1967, pp. 17-19: "Masks were worn far more in festival dancing than in shamanistic activities, but the shaman’s role in their conception and carving cannot be completely understood without a discussion of their use by him. Some nineteenth-century observers said that the medicine man never used a mask while treating patients, but consulted the spirits, bare-faced, inside his gut-skin parka. However, masks were widely used for curing in the North, though apparently reserved only for cases that had wider implications than a simple illness. For example, if the illness had been caused by breaking a rule, the spirits concerned might bring further troubles to everyone…The shaman most commonly used masks to consult with spirits at a time of crisis, wearing a spirit mask to investigate the cause…The shaman sometimes used masks on his visits to the land of the dead.”

pp. 23-24:

To those who remember the great feats of the shaman, the mask remains one of the mysteries that accompanied his activities. Nevertheless, it was also an object that became of importance to everyone because it was worn by lay dancers, as well as for its ceremonial and artistic values. Of even greater importance was the personification of the spirit world by the shaman in such a form that the visually minded Eskimo was able to see some of the results of shamanistic activity. In this way, he validated the shaman’s successful rapport with the spiritual world and reinforced his own relationship to it – in some cases, even after death. The tremendous range in subject matter and style of masks in any one area, and the successful visual realization of imagined forms, can be explained in terms of cultural acceptance and encouragement of such activity. Fe primitive cultures have been more concerned with the conscious pursuit of art than the Eskimo. Thus, the creation of a specific esthetic form from an abstract image or dream was not only the privilege of the artist, but the expectation of others who were to see the finished product."

For information on symbolism used in Eskimo masks see Fitzhugh and Kaplan, 1982, p. 198: “When making masks…a craftsman utilizes a variety of standard visual forms to symbolize religious and other concepts known to the people who regularly view these objects. A man is typically shown with an upturned mouth or with labrets under the corners of his mouth; a woman with a down-turned mouth, frowning mouth, and perhaps a central lower lip labret and radiating chin tattoos…Masked visages and transformed characters are signaled by the use of black spectacle goggles, by black circles around the eyes, or by sections of goggle frames...Analogy to lunar phases is suggested by round and crescentic eyes and twisted mouths. Magical treatment or indications of spiritness are also shown by using red, white, or orange spots, or by eyes in the middle of red painted ovals. However, the specific meaning of many of these remains unclear.”

For information on the material used to construct masks see Ray, 1967, p. 58: "The mask makers utilized almost every material they could lay hands on for decorative purposes. The following inventory, obtained from an examination of about 250 masks, is but a sampling of the total array. Nevertheless it will serve to show the lengths to which  the carver exploited his  environmental and trading resources: feathers (large ones from eagles, geese, ducks, gulls, swans, and horned owls; smaller ones from ptarmigan, terns, and the tail feathers of the old squaw duck), swan’s down, stripped feather quills, porcupine quills, hair (reindeer, caribou, wolf, dog and human), seal pup fur, Alaskan cotton, beach grass, willow bark, willow root, rawhide strips, bleached strips of intestines (natural color or dyed red or black), baleen pendants, beads, string pieces of crockery, brass, copper, lead, iron, cartridge shells, ivory pieces of wood in various shapes, and animal teeth (usually dog).”

Also see Fagg, 1972, p. 27: "Fine shades of colours are not differentiated by these people, but they have names for most of the primary colours. Colouring matter is obtained from various sources…White is made from white clayey earth; yellow and red from ochreous earth; red is also obtained from oxide iron; black is made from plumbago, charcoal, or gunpowder, the two latter being mixed with blood…For the purpose of storing their fragments of paint the Eskimo use boxes somewhat similar in general character to those used for tools, save they are very much smaller."

See Ray, 1967, p. 20: "Large, lightweight masks were used similarly during dimly lighted dances and séances. When a shaman placed his face on the inside of a mask it appeared to stick to him by magic, but actually he gripped a mouthpiece with his teeth. The spectators did not know (or at least pretended not to know) how the mask remained on his face without support because they were not allowed to inspect a shaman’s mask."

For a discussion of masks as they relate to mythology in Eskimo culture see Fitzhugh and Kaplan, 1982, p. 180: "Mythology plays an important role in the people’s everyday lives and its cast of characters forms the basis for stories and dramatic presentations in the qasgiq. When used as illustrations or carvings, images of mythological characters serve both as decorative emblems and as mnemonic devices – keys to characters and sequences of events that take place in a story or set of related stories – and give visual substance to oral traditions. The illustration of mythological characters and events seen on the inside covers of men’s work boxes is more strongly and publicly affirmed through painted and incised drawings on ladles, wooden bowl bottoms, ivory wedges, boats, masks, and other artifacts."

p. 187:

"The ability of men and women to transform themselves into other beings, while always retaining their inuas, result in an unpredictable world in which one cannot be sure of true identity of any given creature. A powerful, potentially evil spirit may take the form of a weasel and or a mouse to eavesdrop on men’s intentions or to bring aid to a captured person…Shaman’s make use of transformations in their performances and magic…These transformations may be the basis for the many ‘half-creatures’ known in Bering Sea stories and mythology."

For related examples see Fienup-Riordan, 1996, p. 246; and Fitzhugh and Kaplan, 1982, p. 211.