Mask - Sculpture - Punu - Gabon (No reserve price)

Punu mask from Gabon
The kaolin powdered mask, this white also traditionally covers the women's bodies during the ceremony. The slightly hemmed mouth, the cheekbones, the delicate scarifications on the temples, as well as the veins of the eyes are revealed by the red of padouk. The diadem adorning the forehead composed of nine scales, called magumbi is an identity motif in reference to the nine primordial clans of the mythical history of the Punu.
According to Louis Perrois, the alternation and combination of symbols, between the scarifications on the temples, a distinctive sign of masculinity, and the feminine diadem would be an identification of ancestral endogeneity.