MASQUE, BAMANA / BOLON, MALI |

Masque, Bamana / Bolon, Mali

Alain Bovis, Paris, 2005
Collection Luc et Ann Huysveld, Anvers
Collection privée, Belgique

Paris, Galerie Alain Bovis, Bambara, Dogon, Senoufo, 3 – 30 juin 2005

Bovis, Bambara, Dogon, Senoufo, 2005, p. 11, n° 3

Excellent condition overall. Wear consistent with age and ritual handling. The shell ornaments are exceptionally well preserved.
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Les masques des Bolon, petit groupe d’origine Mandé habitant à la frontière du Mali et du Burkina Faso, sont éminemment rares. L'un des seuls autres témoins connus fut acquis avant 1942 par Josef Mueller (musée Barbier Mueller inv. n° 1004-51). « Les traits du visage, le nez long et fin, les yeux en grains de café, la bouche ouverte au ras du menton et surtout de chaque côté les deux ‘jambes’ pointées vers le bas » sont caractéristiques des œuvres des artistes de cette région (Hahner-Herzok, Kecskési et Vajda, L’autre Visage. Masques Africains de la collection Barbier-Mueller, 1997, p. 241). Fortement influencés par les masques  Bamana du Ntomo – société chargée de l’initiation des enfants – les maques Bolon partagent avec eux non seulement certains traits formels, au premier lieu desquels la coiffure « en peigne », mais surtout la même fonction rituelle. Au classicisme typologique répond ici l'inventivité de l'artiste qui s'affirme dans l'exceptionnelle formulation du visage, dont le large plan s'anime sous la tension de la nervure médiane et dans le réseau des scarifications finement gravées, apparaissant sous la profonde patine d’usage. 

The Bolon masks, a small group of Mande origins straddling the border of Mali and Burkina Faso, are extremely rare. One of the only other known was acquires by Josef Mueller before 1942 (Barbier Mueller Museum No. 1004-51). "The features of the face, the long, thin nose, the coffee bean eyes, the open mouth flush with the chin and, more specifically, on each side, the two 'legs' pointing downwards" are characteristic of the works of the artists of this region (Hahner-Herzok, Kecskési and Vajda, L’autre Visage. Masques Africains de la collection Barbier-Mueller, 1997, p. 241).

Strongly influenced by the corpus of Bamana Ntomo masks, the society responsible for the initiation of children, Bolon masks share with them not only certain formal traits, including the "comb like" coiffure, but also the same ritual role. The typological classicism of this piece is compounded by the inventiveness of the artist asserting himself in the unique formulation of the face, the wide plane of which is animated both by the tension of the central ridge and by the network of finely carved scarification, emphasized by a deep patina of use.