Mask - Gabon (No reserve price)

African statues of lineage or clan leaders in the tribal art of the Mbede, Mbete, or Ambete.

This version of the reliquary is illustrated by the arrangement and rhythm of its colored planes and by the sober geometry of the facial features. The onkani ancestral cult, among the Mbete, is surrounded by African figures such as this sculpture whose dorsal cavity contains chick down and fragments of feathers. Matte patina, desiccation cracks, erosion.

The Mbete form a people of Gabon, at the border of the Middle Congo, neighboring the Obamba and the Pounou, whose history has been marked by a long-running conflict against the Teke. They do not have a centralized political organization, practice the cult of ancestors.