Punu mask, Gabon Wood, kaolin, pigments H. 23.5... Lot 30

Punu mask, Gabon Wood, kaolin, pigments H. 23.5 cm Provenance : Private collection, France Transmitted by descent Bibliography : Perrois, Louis, Arts du Gabon, Arnouville,1979. Rivière et Lehuard, Art Africain, 1991, no. 50. Amrouche, Pierre, Regards de masques, carnets de route au Gabon, présence africaine & éditions aes, September 2015, p.17. Joubert et Rivière, Masques d'Afrique, 2010, p. 70 and 93, n° 64. An essential emblem of primitive art since the end of the 19th century, among the first works celebrated by modernists (Rubin, Primitivism in 20th century Art, 1984, p.300 - for a photograph taken in 1910 in Picasso's studio, showing an Okuyi mask hanging on the wall). The tsangui mask appeared during acrobatic Okuyi dances, worn by men perched on stilts; the existence of these rituals was reported as early as the mid-19th century by explorer Paul du Chaillu. Their beauty is an echo, a hymn, a resonance to the power and importance of women in Punu social organization. Subtly embodying, in turn, the spirit of the ancestor and feminine beauty, this mask's idealized appearance, softness and beauty combine and celebrate two opposing entities, two dualities: youth and death, sensual beauty and the serenity of the ancestor and the spirit world. The Okuyi paradox is summed up in a masterly, plastic manner. Sensitivity of gaze, underlined by its arched, heightened eyebrows, its half-closed "coffee bean" eyes, finely scarified in an inverted arc, symbolize an inner vision, a link between the living and the dead. The mask is whitened and powdered with kaolin, the ritual blush known as mpemba, which is also traditionally applied to women's bodies during the ceremony. The lightly hemmed mouth, cheekbones, delicate scarring on the temples and ribbing on the eyebrows are revealed and magnified by padouk red. The magumbi diadem on the forehead, made up of several scales, is an identifying motif referring to the nine primordial clans in the mythical history of the Punu. According to Louis Perrois, the alternation and combination of symbols between the scarification marks on the temples, a distinctive sign of masculinity, and the feminine tiara is an identification of ancestral endogeneity. The delicate, refined headdress, extended in small side braids, is topped by a chiseled chignon. The subtle symbolic meaning of the Okuyi rite is matched by the finesse of the features and modelling of this archetypal work, imbued with a deep, gentle quietude: "Everything was as if in a collector's dream: perfect forms and a harmonious balance between the high combed bun headdress and the white face scarified at the temples and forehead". (Pierre Amrouche, Regards de masques, p.17).