Royal Baule mask of the Mbahiakro region, Ivory Coast. Incl. stand. This royal Baule mask from the Mbahiakro region of Côte d’Ivoire exemplifies the artistry and spiritual authority associated with Baule courtly traditions. Carved from a single piece of wood, it would have been created for use in ceremonial contexts honoring rulers and ancestral spirits, where such masks affirmed lineage, leadership, and communal harmony. The making of a royal mask demanded not only technical mastery but also ritual preparation, as the carver was believed to channel spiritual forces through the act of creation. More than a visual object, it served as a conduit between the human and ancestral realms, reinforcing the sacred foundation of Baule kingship and the enduring aesthetic ideals that define Baule identity. “To articulate historians, the most consistent features of Baule art is a kind of peaceful containment. Faces tend to have downcast eyes and figures most often hold their ams against the body. [...] Among their abundant art forms, the Baule people continue to place the greatest value on masks and figure sculptures, which remain the only sculptural art still widely used in Baule villages. While there is a difference between the Baule view of their objects and that of Western connoisseurs, there are points of agreement. Aesthetic appreciation is one: Baule artist, and individual owners of objects, certainly sometimes enjoy the beauty of these objects and the skill it took coproduce them. [...] Ornaments above the face are chosen for their beauty and have no iconographic significance” p.141. Lit: Baule: African Art, Western Eyes. Susan M.Vogel 1997. "The Baule masks are not merely objects of beauty but active participants in a dynamic world, mediating between the human and the spiritual, the individual and the community, the past and the present." Susan Vogel, Baule: African Art, Western Eyes. Height: 45 cm without stand.