Lot 86 Dα

The discovery or rediscovery of this mask brings the number of known examples to eight. The other examples were itemised in Lempertz catalogue of 1 February 2023. The present mask resembles most closely the mask in the Barbier-Mueller collection, Geneva, collected by Berthe Hartert and her husband, Lodève, France, in the 1940s or 50s (Hahner-Herzog, I. and Kecskési, M., "African Masks from the Barbier-Mueller Collection", Geneva, Munich, 1998, p.91). Both masks have a whitened face, carved teeth, two carved scarification marks below each eye and the inclusion of red and blue pigments to highlight certain features.