Lega Bwami mask
€230.00
In Lega African art, masks play a central role within the Bwami initiation society: they embody moral qualities, proverbs, and the knowledge transmitted during the initiation stages, and are preserved and passed down among initiates as symbols of authority and continuity.
Some masks are not worn but presented or manipulated to instruct through gesture and word; others symbolize ancestors or high ranks and serve to remind members of the community's ethical norms.
Some masks are communal and are inherited when an initiate reaches a certain rank.
The example I am offering here comes from an old Belgian colonial collection, brought back in the 1940s. It has an archaic appearance, from a time when African sculptors were still largely unfamiliar with the Western colonists' taste for tribal art aesthetics and therefore had not yet incorporated them into their sculpture.
Shipping fees
02596
Data sheet
- Presumed dating
- Circa 1930
- Size
- 22 cm (35 cm with support)
- Ethnic group
- Material(s)
- Wood
- Country
- Origin
- Old colonial collection, Belgium
- Stand
- Included
- Condition
- Vintage
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In Lega African art, masks play a central role within the Bwami initiation society: they embody moral qualities, proverbs, and the knowledge transmitted during the initiation stages, and are preserved and passed down among initiates as symbols of authority and continuity.
Some masks are not worn but presented or manipulated to instruct through gesture and word; others symbolize ancestors or high ranks and serve to remind members of the community's ethical norms.
Some masks are communal and are inherited when an initiate reaches a certain rank.
The example I am offering here comes from an old Belgian colonial collection, brought back in the 1940s. It has an archaic appearance, from a time when African sculptors were still largely unfamiliar with the Western colonists' taste for tribal art aesthetics and therefore had not yet incorporated them into their sculpture.