Dan Poro mask, Ivory Coast Wood with black patina H.... Lot 29

Dan Poro mask, Ivory Coast Wood with black patina H. 28 cm Dan Poro mask, Ivory Coast H. 11 in Provenance: - Collected in the field by George W. Harley in Ganta, Liberia before - Peaboly Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Inventory number: 40-34-50/4591, 1940 - 1951 - Denver Art Museum, Denver Colorado. Inventory number: 1951. 438, 1951 - 2003 - Merton Simpson Collection - Private Collection This very ancient Dan mask shows a very clever architectural complexity in the arrangement of the different volumes of its anthropo-zoomorphic face. Its thick and deep patina testifies to its great antiquity. In a 1947 work by the Peabody Museum, Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland, a related mask, but with less marked plans, is described as a judge mask, responsible for settling conflicts (the dog - a forager for the Poro).