superb mask - Teke - DRC Congo (No reserve price)

Kidumu Face Mask - Teke / Tsayi - DRC Zaire
In the 19th century, the Tsayi, a Teke group, constituted an important people living between the Louessé River and Haut-Ogooué.

From that time, they produced wooden masks of a very particular shape: it is a polychrome disk displaying symmetries with respect to vertical and horizontal axes.
Thin slits are cut at the level of the eyes as well as holes along the edge of the disk to thread fibers or feathers.

The dancer Kidumu plays on the mask’s symmetries by spinning, by performing a cartwheel, and perhaps conveys different readings of the motifs that decorate it.