Anthropomorphic mask, Papua New Guinea. - Lot 333

Anthropomorphic mask, Papua New Guinea. Anthropomorphic mask with a particularly long nose. The appendage curls slightly, evoking the proboscis of an insect (mosquito or butterfly?). The slenderness of this elongated nose, with its clear phallic connotations, also allows it to be likened to a beak, as is customary in this cultural zone of the Sepik. A series of dots decorate the length of the nose. Champlevé work delineates the face, with particular attention paid to the eyes, represented by two oblique perforated slits. The cheekbones are marked by two crescents. A jagged outline indicates the beard, a sign of ancestry. His facial expression tends towards anger, and instills a certain disquiet in those who look him in the face. On the forehead, the mask seems to be adorned with a sculpted headband, made of the same curvilinear motif presented in opposite directions on either side of a medium-relief disk. A sort of quilted frieze, carved in medium relief, delimits this frontal band. The top of the mask is crowned with a high-relief sculpture of a bird surrounded by a snake. Beneath them is a medium-relief ornament consisting of a series of six small truncated cylinders joined by a band adorned with a bas-relief disk. This mask belongs to the "brag" or "brag sebug" type, representing an ancestral spirit. Brag masks are common in this area of the Sepik, but this one stands out for the length of the hybrid nasal appendage and the finesse and profusion of the facial ornamentation. Traces of pigmentation, missing parts and cracks. Murik Lakes Papuans, Murik Lakes area, Eastern Sepik Province (Papua New Guinea). On base. Dimensions: length (excluding base) 88 cm (101 cm with base), 22 cm wide. Estimated dating: First part of the 20th century Provenance : - Acquired by Georges Alliou - by descent Selective bibliography : - Crispin HOWARTH, 2015, Myth + magic. Art of the Sepik river, Papua New Guinea, National Gallery of Australia, pp. 54-59 - A.J.P. MEYER, Oceanic Art, Könemann, Cologne, 1995 ; pp. 178-197 Corpus for comparison : - Lot 353, Mossgreen, Melbourne - August 30, 2015