FROM OKITIPUPA

細節

A YORUBA WATER SPIRIT MASK
From Okitipupa
The curved rectangular face with tapered crest above, the face covered with brass sheets with embossed scarification on the cheeks, embossed ridges to the center of the nose and outlining the nostrils, pierced slits to the mouth and raised eyes, the forehead covered in blue cloth with central brass band with geometric outline, further brass strips bordering the face and surrounding the finial, the brass with reddish brown patina
19¾in. (50cm.) high

來源

Dr and Mrs Robert Kuhn

出版

Drewal, Pemberton and Abiodun, 1989, p.137, fig.149

拍品專文

Henry Drewal (op.cit. p.145) writes: "While some Agbo masks are horizontally oriented to evoke the image of spirits as they float on the surface of the water, others are vertical in composition. They may derive from western Ijo headdresses that influenced Bini water-spirit masks (known as igbile) at Ughoton and another from the Yoruba lagoon town of Okitipupa with metal covering its surface [here he cites the present example]...
"The presence of metal in some of these water-spirit images may be partly because the metal is European, imported from across the seas beneath which the spirits live. Europeans themselves, being from overseas, are regarded in much African and specifically Ijo lore, as water beings associated with water spirits."