- 42
Makonde Terracotta Mask, Mozambique or Tanzania
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
bidding is closed
Description
- terracotta
- Height: 8 7/8 in (22.5 cm)
Provenance
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Munich, acquired in the late 1970s
Exhibited
Museum für Völkerkunde, Vienna, Götter Geister Ahnen. Afrikanische Skulpturen in deutschen Privatsammlungen, March 23 - July 24, 1994
Literature
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Götter Geister Ahnen. Afrikanische Skulpturen in deutschen Privatsammlungen (an addendum to Gods, Spirits, Ancestors: African Sculpture from Private German Collections), Vienna, 1994, p. 30, no. 302
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Afrikanische Kunst. Von der Frühzeit bis heute, Munich, 1997, p. 316, no. 215
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Afrikanische Kunst. Von der Frühzeit bis heute, Munich, 1997, p. 316, no. 215
Catalogue Note
Although there appears to have been a long tradition of terracotta masks amongst the Makonde, until quite recently they were almost entirely undiscussed in the literature. Schaedler (1997: 316) notes that “independent reports from very recent times [… indicate that the masks] presumably represent the female counterpart to the masks for male initiation, since the women perform the initiation of girls and make the ceramic masks […]”.
In his important work on Makonde masquerades, In Step with the Times: Mapiko Masquerades of Mozambique, Israel (2014: 185), notes that “The women’s vitengamatu [sing. shitengamatu, meaning literally “open your ears”], made in clay, dance only once a year in the final coming-out ceremonies (nkamangu) of feminine pu🀅berty rites, held in the thick of the bush and almost paranoically guarded from intrusion. They are never danced in public, and men die without ever seeing them.”