A Dogon mask

walu, of overall deep, hollowed rectangular form, the jutting chin leading to the recessed facial plane with protruding circular mouth beneath the openwork nose and triangular eyes, with pointed ears to the sides and thick, striated horns at the crown; pierced around the rim for attachment; '239X' on the base; old label at the reverse 'Mr. and Mrs. Harold Rome, New York'; exceptionally fine aged and varied surface with areas of black, white and red pigment.

Harold Rome Collection, New York
Leloup Gallery, New York, before 1987

See Ezra (1988: 73, figure 27) for a related mask from the Wunderman collection now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The carver of the Brill antelope mask, walu, while following the architectonic code for Dogon masks, presents a sense of lightness through a series of formal choises, notably the triangular piercing of the chin just below the pursed lips,  outling the lips with a rim, the nose which in profile reveals an openwork, zigzag support.

Walu masks were performed in the dama funerary ceremony. Griaule in his well-known and comprehensive field study of the 1930's documented this ceremony. He interpreted the dama, the reenaction of the behavior of the Dogon's mythic ancestors, as a method of restoring order and peace within the community after the disruption caused by death (ibid.).