Eclectic

Eclectic

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 2029. Bwa mask, Burkina Faso | 非洲布基纳法索布瓦面具.

Bwa mask, Burkina Faso | 非洲布基纳法索布瓦面具

Lot Closed

July 14, 02:29 AM GMT

Estimate

150,000 - 200,000 HKD

Lot Details

Description

Bwa mask, Burkina Faso

非洲布基纳法索布瓦面具


pigments on wood

189 by 27 cm

Collection of Josef Mueller (1884-1977), Solothurn, acquired in 1952-1953.
Christie's London, 13th June 1978, lot 49.
Pierre Dartevelle, Brussels.
Collection of Marceau Rivière, Paris, acquired in 2014.
Josef Mueller(1884-1977年)收藏,索洛圖恩,1952-1953年入藏
倫敦佳士得1978年6月13日,編號49
Pierre Dartevelle,布魯塞爾
Marceau Rivière 收藏,巴黎,2014年入藏
Du, August 1978, p. 71.
Anne-Marie Bouttiaux, 'Persona. Masks of Africa - Identities Hidden and Revealed', African Arts, 2009, vol. 42, no. 3, p. 68, fig. 12.
《Du》,1978年8月,頁71
Anne-Marie Bouttiaux,〈Persona. Masks of Africa - Identities Hidden and Revealed〉,《African Arts》,2009年,卷42,第3期,頁68,圖12

In a photograph taken circa 1960, which immortalizes a part of the Josef Mueller collection, one sculpture particularly stands out, adorning the ridge beam of his house in Solothurn: the archaic Bwa "knife mask", celebrated as one of the masterpieces of the Voltaic people.


The southern Bwa, or Nyaynegay, borrowed the tradition of wooden masks from their Gurunsi neighbours. Unlike the leaf masks related to the cult of the supreme god Do, the latter are associated with myths that recount the genesis of the clans and lineages that structure the communities among as expressive in dance. The corpus is divided between zoomorphic representations - symbolising the powers of the founding ancestors - and an iconography that is abstract in appearance and is present in the prodigious knife masks. According to Daniela Bognolo (Falgayrettes-Leveau, Animal, op.cit., p. 199), the nwantantay were the archetype of wooden masks. Their elaboration thus associates certain key elements of the myth of creation, drawn from the Do, and signs tailoring each mask to the personal history of the clan ancestor, whose emblem it is.


The monumental and polychromatic art of the Voltaic peoples came relatively late into Western collections. Amongst the rare nwantantay on record before the late 1950s are those collected circa 1930 by Henri Labouret, now kept in the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, and that of the Barbier-Mueller collections (inv. no. 1005-10), acquired, like this one, from Emile Storrer in 1953. Here, the refinement of the structure and its ornamentation, the elegance of the motifs and their combination, as well as the marks of its long use before acquisition confirm the great antiquity of this piece. These archaic masks were kept between performances near an altar embodying the spiritual power of masks (Christopher Roy, Art of the Upper Volta Rivers, Meudon, 1987, p. 292).