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Lot Essay
Without parallel in artistic quality by any other known examples, this fern-tree mask is one of the best of its kind. Unlike many others in public or private collections it is distinguished by the refined modelling of its features and its incredibly vibrant power which is further enhanced by the vividness of the colors that animate it.
According to Bernard Deacon who conducted field research amongst the people of Malekula between 1926 and 1927, all types of masks from the southwestern region belonged to the Nalawan secret society. Deacon recorded more than twenty types of these masks (A. B. Deacon, and C. H. Wedgewood (ed.), Malekula: a Vanishing People in the New Hebrides, London, 1934, p.387, 425 -429). The Nalawan was structured as a grade society within which different masks corresponded to different grades, and were danced and used accordingly. Grade societies are stratified and the knowledge contained therein was highly confidential and kept secret amongst its members. Therefore, more detailed information about the particular symbolism of the actual related masks and works of art have never been fully elucidated.
For one related example vis a vis the use of inlaid seeds as to represent the teeth see the one from the former Clausmeyer collection, now in the Joest-Rautenstrauch Museum Cologne, inv. Nr. 48184 K342. On the other hand, the Pénot mask is very distinctive by virtue of its double rows of arched eye brows, the softly modelled cleft chin into and the bright fourfold coloring of black, green, white and red natural pigments. It bears strong stylistic resemblance to an example collected by Felix Speiser between 1910 and 1912 in southern Malekula, now in the Museum für Völkerkunde Basel, Vb 4768 (see Vanuatu Océanie. Arts des îles de cendre et de corail, Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, 1996, p. 22, fig. 24). According to information provided by Speiser these masks produced from the fibres of the fern tree were all mounted on a base of spider web.
The present lot represents one of the most significant treasures that French naval officer Paul Pénot collected in 1892 when visiting what was then the British-French territory, a Melanesian island collective, called the New Hebrides, today the independent state of Vanuatu. Born in 1869 in Yzeures-sur-Creuse Paul Pénot entered the French Navy in 1887. On the 1st of January 1892 he embarked on the Saône, a gunboat of the Pacific Ocean naval division that would take him on an expedition from Sydney to New Caledonia, and then further to the Loyalty Islands, Fiji and ultimately the Vanuatu. The logbook he kept during this expedition attests to Pénot’s inquisitive and lively interest in the people he encountered. As an active observer of their customs he was also an eager collector of weapons, ceremonial objects, tapa cloth and masks. Until its dispersal at the end of the 1990s his collection was displayed in the form of a curiosity cabinet for almost a century in a house that he himself designed.
According to Bernard Deacon who conducted field research amongst the people of Malekula between 1926 and 1927, all types of masks from the southwestern region belonged to the Nalawan secret society. Deacon recorded more than twenty types of these masks (A. B. Deacon, and C. H. Wedgewood (ed.), Malekula: a Vanishing People in the New Hebrides, London, 1934, p.387, 425 -429). The Nalawan was structured as a grade society within which different masks corresponded to different grades, and were danced and used accordingly. Grade societies are stratified and the knowledge contained therein was highly confidential and kept secret amongst its members. Therefore, more detailed information about the particular symbolism of the actual related masks and works of art have never been fully elucidated.
For one related example vis a vis the use of inlaid seeds as to represent the teeth see the one from the former Clausmeyer collection, now in the Joest-Rautenstrauch Museum Cologne, inv. Nr. 48184 K342. On the other hand, the Pénot mask is very distinctive by virtue of its double rows of arched eye brows, the softly modelled cleft chin into and the bright fourfold coloring of black, green, white and red natural pigments. It bears strong stylistic resemblance to an example collected by Felix Speiser between 1910 and 1912 in southern Malekula, now in the Museum für Völkerkunde Basel, Vb 4768 (see Vanuatu Océanie. Arts des îles de cendre et de corail, Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, 1996, p. 22, fig. 24). According to information provided by Speiser these masks produced from the fibres of the fern tree were all mounted on a base of spider web.
The present lot represents one of the most significant treasures that French naval officer Paul Pénot collected in 1892 when visiting what was then the British-French territory, a Melanesian island collective, called the New Hebrides, today the independent state of Vanuatu. Born in 1869 in Yzeures-sur-Creuse Paul Pénot entered the French Navy in 1887. On the 1st of January 1892 he embarked on the Saône, a gunboat of the Pacific Ocean naval division that would take him on an expedition from Sydney to New Caledonia, and then further to the Loyalty Islands, Fiji and ultimately the Vanuatu. The logbook he kept during this expedition attests to Pénot’s inquisitive and lively interest in the people he encountered. As an active observer of their customs he was also an eager collector of weapons, ceremonial objects, tapa cloth and masks. Until its dispersal at the end of the 1990s his collection was displayed in the form of a curiosity cabinet for almost a century in a house that he himself designed.