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Lot Essay
Testament to the Grace and Power of Women to Unify Community
The white masks of the Punu from Southern Gabon have become one of the emblematic images of African arts since the end of the 19th century. The okuyi dance, which gave its name to these masks, brought the community together for major events: during the funerals of its most important members, at the birth of twins, at the initiation of young men, and to restore social order after a crisis in the community. The okuyi dancer, accompanied with his acolytes, danced through the village on high stilts provoking people with acrobatic stunts.
Okuyi invoked spirits from the underworld that were incarnated as a “beautiful young girl”. Her appearance was idealized in an exquisitely carved mask. Some of the prerequisites for her face were that it must have high cheekbones, an expansive forehead marked by scarifications, arched slit eyes, a flat nose with marked wings, full delicate lips, a smooth philtrum above them, and a elaborate coiffure which mirrored those worn by important Punu women in the 19th century. While the hair was blackened, the lips and scarifications on forehead and temples were painted red. The face was covered in mineral white chalk. This color was also used for body painting during cultural ceremonies and was associated with the ancestral spirits, protective and beneficial for the community. The raised scarification marks on the temples and forehead have been subject to a wide range of interpretations; the scholar Louis Perrois argues, for example, that the combination of ‘male’ square patterns on the temples and ‘female’ diamonds on the forehead serves as an indication of ancestral androgyny, while others have linked these with the nine primordial clans of the Punu. In any case, such patterns were also considered signs of great beauty.
According to the classification of Louis Perrois (Arts of Gabon, Arnouville, 1979), the present mask is part of the type of masks where the hair is composed of thin braids arranged in two shell-like forms, each of which tapers down into a side braid. The famous mask of the Goldet collection (Ricqles, Hubert Goldet Collection, Paris, June 30 and July 1, 2001, lot 269) as well as the one from the Vérité collection (Enchères Rive Gauche, 17-18 June 2006, lot 185) are of the same type, as well as a mask sold at Christie’s (Christie's, Paris, 8 December 2004, lot 192) and one in the collection of the Rotterdam museum (#MVVR.30271).
Within Punu society, okuyi masks correspond to some of the highest ideals of feminine charm. These masks are testaments to the grace and power of Punu women. Their prevailing naturalism endeared such masks to the Europeans who encountered them in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As in Gabon, these white masks remained items of great beauty and virtuosity once they entered Western collections. Early modernist artists were taken by their symmetry and proportion. See Rubin (Primitivism in 20th Century Art, 1984, p. 300) for a photograph taken in 1910 in Picasso's studio, showing a white okuyi mask on the wall.
The white masks of the Punu from Southern Gabon have become one of the emblematic images of African arts since the end of the 19th century. The okuyi dance, which gave its name to these masks, brought the community together for major events: during the funerals of its most important members, at the birth of twins, at the initiation of young men, and to restore social order after a crisis in the community. The okuyi dancer, accompanied with his acolytes, danced through the village on high stilts provoking people with acrobatic stunts.
Okuyi invoked spirits from the underworld that were incarnated as a “beautiful young girl”. Her appearance was idealized in an exquisitely carved mask. Some of the prerequisites for her face were that it must have high cheekbones, an expansive forehead marked by scarifications, arched slit eyes, a flat nose with marked wings, full delicate lips, a smooth philtrum above them, and a elaborate coiffure which mirrored those worn by important Punu women in the 19th century. While the hair was blackened, the lips and scarifications on forehead and temples were painted red. The face was covered in mineral white chalk. This color was also used for body painting during cultural ceremonies and was associated with the ancestral spirits, protective and beneficial for the community. The raised scarification marks on the temples and forehead have been subject to a wide range of interpretations; the scholar Louis Perrois argues, for example, that the combination of ‘male’ square patterns on the temples and ‘female’ diamonds on the forehead serves as an indication of ancestral androgyny, while others have linked these with the nine primordial clans of the Punu. In any case, such patterns were also considered signs of great beauty.
According to the classification of Louis Perrois (Arts of Gabon, Arnouville, 1979), the present mask is part of the type of masks where the hair is composed of thin braids arranged in two shell-like forms, each of which tapers down into a side braid. The famous mask of the Goldet collection (Ricqles, Hubert Goldet Collection, Paris, June 30 and July 1, 2001, lot 269) as well as the one from the Vérité collection (Enchères Rive Gauche, 17-18 June 2006, lot 185) are of the same type, as well as a mask sold at Christie’s (Christie's, Paris, 8 December 2004, lot 192) and one in the collection of the Rotterdam museum (#MVVR.30271).
Within Punu society, okuyi masks correspond to some of the highest ideals of feminine charm. These masks are testaments to the grace and power of Punu women. Their prevailing naturalism endeared such masks to the Europeans who encountered them in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As in Gabon, these white masks remained items of great beauty and virtuosity once they entered Western collections. Early modernist artists were taken by their symmetry and proportion. See Rubin (Primitivism in 20th Century Art, 1984, p. 300) for a photograph taken in 1910 in Picasso's studio, showing a white okuyi mask on the wall.
