Ɵ Yuat River mask, Biwat people, or 'Mundugomor... - Lot 25 - Giquello

Lot 25
Go to lot
Estimation :
30000 - 40000 EUR
Ɵ Yuat River mask, Biwat people, or 'Mundugomor... - Lot 25 - Giquello
Ɵ Yuat River mask, Biwat people, or 'Mundugomor mask', Sepik, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia Period: Late 19th century Wood, pigments H. 29.8 cm Yuat River mask, Biwat people, or 'Mundugomor mask', Sepik, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia H. 111/2 in Provenance: - Collected by Dr. Otto Schlaginhaufen, probably August 2, 1909 - Dresden Museum - Arthur Speyer, Berlin, by exchange with the Museum, after 1921 - Wayne Heathcote, UK - Private collection Bibliography: - Margareat Mead, Tamberans und Tumbuans in New Guinea, AMNH Magazine, 1934. This powerful biwat mask is fortunate to be very well documented. Dr. Otto Schlaginhaufen (1879-1973), a Swiss anthropologist, entomologist and botanist, if he was more interested in skulls than in objects, was lucky enough to discover a group of three biwat masks, most probably on August 2, 1909! Another of these masks is published in Island Ancestors, Oceanic Art from the Masco Collection, Allen Wardwell, University of Washington Press, 1994, No. 14 (Papers published in Dresden in 1910, Abhandlungen und Berichte des Staatlichen Museums für Völkerkunde Dresden, p. 7). He made two brief stays in New German Guinea and shipped some 260 objects to the Dresden Museum. He travelled on foot and by pirogue, with guards and porters, the Torricelli Mountains and the Ramu region without going to the Biwat. He was therefore able to find these masks either far from their region of origin (exchanges between the Mundugomor, Tchambuli and Iatmul populations were numerous both in terms of objects and in cultural and religious terms) or on board the ship Siar, sailing on the Sepik in August 1909. Two hypotheses, in fact, can explain why Schlaginhaufen found these masks not on the Yuat River, which he did not explore, but in a village on the banks of the Sepik: - either the 'Mundugomor' sold, after use, their ceremonies, songs and related objects - as Christian Kaufm
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue