Dan Guéré passport mask, Ivory Coast Wood H. 22... Lot 14

Dan Guéré passport mask, Ivory Coast Wood H. 22 cm The miniature format of this ma go passport mask in no way detracts from the expressive power of its strongly voluminous features. On the contrary, it concentrates and synthesizes the spiritual power of the large masks, enabling their protective power to be maintained beyond village borders through small, personal, portable objects, rubbed and fed with devotion to activate their efficacy. The tutelary function of passport masks can be reinforced by other objects with which they are associated, such as leather pouches or antelope horns packed with medicinal fillers. In the context of meetings of male secret societies, they can take on a pedagogical aspect by teaching new initiates the sacred sculpted forms. Our object features a face dominated by a prominent forehead stretched forward, balanced by the protrusion of a half-open mouth with full lips. The folding of the slit eyes is accentuated by the protuberant treatment of the conical cheeks. It is in the pure tradition of ma go masks, whose features conceal all the power of the spirits of the lineage.