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Dimitri André

A Kulango royal mask, Ivory Coast, Agnibilekro region. Certificate of origin and provenance. Incl. stand.

This mask is attributed to the Kulango (also spelled Koulango) peoples of the Agnibilekrou region in eastern Côte d’Ivoire, near the Ghanaian border. It belongs to a rare typology of royal or chiefly masks, which—unlike initiation, entertainment, or divinatory masks among neighboring cultures—were reserved for contexts of high political significance. These included funerary rites of chiefs, the investiture of new rulers, and major ritual festivals linked to ancestral veneration and the legitimization of chiefly authority.^[1^]

Formally, the mask exemplifies core characteristics of Kulango royal art: a broad, symmetrical visage with a high forehead, arched brows, and reduced, slit-like eyes. The facial expression, devoid of aggression or overt dynamism, reflects the ideals of equilibrium and authority. These traits convey moral introspection and the embodiment of ancestral virtues—attributes that the mask symbolically transfers to the performer.^[2^]

Although Kulango masking traditions are less extensively documented than those of adjacent groups such as the Baule or Anyi, recent studies suggest that their material culture was deeply influenced by Akan political structures and aesthetic canons, while retaining distinctive local forms.^[3^] Royal masks, in particular, were typically controlled by chiefly households and never circulated beyond tightly regulated ceremonial frameworks. Their appearance in performance was a rare, highly codified event, reinforcing both social hierarchy and ritual cosmology.^[4^]

The present example, with its restrained surface treatment and absence of polychromy, is consistent with a genre of sacred or high-status objects not intended for public display outside ritual use. Its subtle elegance and formal coherence point to the work of a master carver operating within a long-standing sculptural tradition, likely passed through lineage-based artisan workshops or ritual guilds.^[5^]

As a material document, this mask serves as a rare visual testament to the interplay of aesthetics, power, and memory within Kulango royal ideology—an ideology in which art

    Bassani, Ezio, and William Fagg. Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory. New York: The Center for African Art, 1988.

    Vogel, Susan Mullin. Baule: African Art, Western Eyes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

    Gavua, Kodzo. Akan Worlds: Cosmologies and Cultures in the African Diaspora. Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers, 2005.

    McLeod, Malcolm. The Asante. London: British Museum Publications, 1981.

    Holas, B. Arts de la Côte d'Ivoire. Paris: Editions Cercle d’Art, 1973.

Height: 26 cm without stand.

Wood - Fair condition

Kulango - Côte d'Ivoire  (No Reserve Price)

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