Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
ADJUNCT MODULE D: WORLD ART
Preferred Title:
Barkcloth Dance Mask from Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea
Image View:
Overall view from the front
Creator:
unknown (Papua New Guinea artist)
Location:
repository: Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (Paris, Île-de-France, France) 71.1961.59.7
Location Note:
From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-Face Picasso, Past and Present (2018 exhibition)
Date:
20th century (creation)
Cultural Context:
Melanesian; Papua New Guinea
Style Period:
Elema
Work Type 1:
ceremonial mask
Classification:
Sculpture and Installations
Material:
tapa cloth; wood; pigment; vegetable fiber; feathers
Technique:
construction (assembling); painting and painting techniques
Measurements:
98 cm (height) x 95 cm (width) x 34 cm (depth)
Subjects:
decorative arts; Melanesian; Oceanic; ceremonial; ceremonies; dance
Description:
The dance mask has a stylized face resembling a fish head, fins at the bottom. The coarsely worked and whitened tapa is stretched on a light wooden frame, oval at the top and whose flanks are spread at the bottom by transversely attached palm slats. The Elema people inhabit the eastern side of the Papuan Gulf, a 300 mile-long bay. This mask is of the type called 'eharo'. Some eharo masks represent totemic spirits associated with individual clans. Others embody comic social commentary, representing characters or humorous figures from oral traditions. This mask, from Kerema village, is a mask for the clan Misaevo. (Source: Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac [website]; http://www.quaibranl y.fr/en/)
Collection:
Archivision Adjunct Module D: World Art
Identifier:
7A3-AFRICAN-FAFFM-MM P-A01
Rights:
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.

Barkcloth Dance Mask from Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea