Superb - mask - Punu - Gabon (No reserve price)

The white masks of South Gabon have become one of the iconic images of African art in the 19th century. The coherence of their corpus, which is very rich, has challenged various attempts at classification, whether based on their iconographic variations or through closely related groups (Punu, Lumbu, Shira, Sangu, Tsengi, etc.) that still share their tradition today. Aesthetics offers another approach to their study. Beyond Western appreciation, it is based on the very essence of these masks, whose inspiration and reception stem as much from beauty as from virtuosity. This mask stands at the pinnacle of a tradition where religious and secular notions of the sacred unite in the exaltation of beauty.