ANONYME. Lot n° 24

"Bakongo Mask" (ca 1920). Wooden sculpture mounted on a black metal base. Size : 31,5 x 13 x 10 cm. Mask representing the white man, the foreman during the construction of the Belgian railroad. Although the representation of travelers, merchants, soldiers and other European missionaries abound in the figurative arts of non-Western societies, they have been little studied. Nevertheless, as early as 1937, the German anthropologist Julius Lips took an interest in this subject and devoted a reference work to it, "The Savage Hits Back". This Kongo (Democratic Republic of Congo) mask represents the white (Belgian) merchant or traveler in contact with this part of the country from the beginning of the 20th century. The Bakongo culture has integrated the "foreigner" into its cosmology, whether he be white or Asian. This mask, which probably dates from the 1920s and 1930s, was worn by a male dancer in order to show the characteristics and strangeness of the white man at the heart of Bakongo society.