Kpelié Dance Mask - Senoufo, Mali With Patina Of Use

Ethnicity: Sénoufo, South of Mali,. Height: 37 cm Rare and superb old senufo kpelie mask surmounted by three birds with remains of blue pigment. The face of perfect proportions is punctuated by a long fine nose whose curve accentuates the depth of the concave face, joining a fine prognathic mouth showing the teeth. The sculptural dynamic is accentuated by the numerous appendages projected in high relief around the mask and whose forms play on emptiness and fullness. Note the exceptional sensitivity of the sculpture, the finesse of the graphics and the superb smooth brown patina in places due to use and thicker elsewhere. . Unlike the masks classically surmounted by the motif of a kapok tree grater which intervene within the framework of the initiatory society of Poro, the rare masks dominated by an animal or a character intervene, according to Till Förster, in festive masquerades during which young people men demonstrate their acrobatic skills. According to Marie-Françoise Bastin, he would suggest the itinerant traders Dyula. Garrard places early in the stylistic evolution, the masks whose appendages exceed only very little the line of the chin as here.