A fine Mossi mask

karan wemba, the hollowed ovoid mask with a serrated medial ridge bisecting the circular eyes and leading to V-shaped horns, the whole surmounted by an attenuated female figure on a raised plaque with wedge-shaped feet, bent legs and salient breasts framed by arms held out to the sides, the flat, helmet-shaped head with a single-crested coiffure; '42' on the base and an old label with '42-63' at the reverse; aged surface overall with areas of white and red ochre pigment.

Acquired from Galerie Kamer, New York, 1963 

New York, The Museum of Primitive Art, The Sculpture of Black Africa: Upper Volta, 1972, catalogue number 3
Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Museum, Selections from the William W. Brill Colllection of African Art, May 5 - August 31, 1969 (for additional venues see bibliography, Milwaukee 1969)

Milwaukee 1969: 8
The Duluth News-Tribune, February 8, 1970: 6

 

For another closely related mask from the Helena Rubinstein Collection cf. Sotheby's New York, April 21, 1966, lot 97. For two other related masks see Roy (1987: figures 87 and 88). The karan wemba mask falls into the northern style of Mossi masks (Yatenga, Risiam or Kaya). The female figure composed together with the zoomorphic quality of the face mask suggests the association of the antelope as a totemic animal and its interaction with human beings in Mossi myths of origin (ibid.).