Mask with horns ·  Côte d'Ivoire, Dan · ID: 3032774

Description

wood, the face painted in red with mass remains, inserted metal tags (above the mouth and at the chin), small magical package with feathers above the forehead, slightly dam., cracks, drilled holes around the rim partly broken, collection number backside “92 32”, on metal base;
the pierced round eyes and the red facial paint refers to the “zakpai” mask type, which appeared only in dry season and whose sole function was to keep control of the cooking fires in order to prevent a fire to break out.

The object Mask with horns with the object ID 3032774 was last part of the auction 69th tribal art auction at June 2, 2012 on Zemanek-Münster Auction house. The object with the lot number 299 achieved a sales price of EUR 1,500.

You can find more Masks and other popular object types on our related topic pages. You may also be interested in our page on African art.

Comparing literature

Fischer, Eberhard, Himmelheber, Hans, Die Kunst der Dan, Zürich 1976, p. 73