Mask - Congo (No reserve price)

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Ex-French collection of African art.

African zoomorphic masks evoking the gorilla ancestor, worn by the war chief to assert his authority. The construction favors the cranial block from which the hollow gaze peers. Fine, pigmented lips are arranged horizontally in the lower segment of the face, extended with pointed projections. Satin two-tone patina. Abrasions. Tribe of the Kota group, the Kwélé, Bakwélé, live in the forest on the northern border of the Republic of the Congo. They live by hunting, farming, and metallurgy. Practising the cult named Bwété borrowed from the Ngwyes, which was accompanied by mandatory initiation rites, they used at the end of ceremonies the ekuk masks evoking the antelope whose horns join in a loop under the chin. The blood of the antelope was also used by the Kwélé for therapeutic purposes. Most of the masks of the ethnic group are