A perfect mask of the Vuvi from central Gabon. Masks, such as the present one, represent supernatural spirits. They are used during initiation rituals and funerals.
The present mask displays all the characteristic features of the Vuvi style: it is carved in hard, brown wood in a typical oblong form and with a flat section of the face. The entire face surface is coloured in white with kaolin.
Unlike this, other parts are coloured in contrasting black and brown: the double lines of the raised eyebrows, the slit eyes, the short nose, the small, rhomb-shaped open mouth, the beard on the chin, the hairstyle and the outer edge of the mask. The hairstyle features an old decorative brass nail in the middle of the upper section, behind which three wood studs are inserted. Blue lines on the forehead and both cheeks allude to typical tribal scarification marks. The outer rim still preserves two large-size holes for attaching the mask to the dancer’s head, whilst three rows of smaller holes for fastening additional fibre ornaments are visible near the chin and cheeks. The reverse displays very good usage patina and an old original repair (a tear to the left edge of the face was glued with tree resin on the back). Otherwise hardly any damage (minor, superficial tears). Overall an important ‘museum-quality’ piece! 19th century, collected before 1883; H: c. 40 cm.

Provenance: Collected by Louis Petit (1856-1943). Louis Petit was a French explorer, ornithologist, collector, taxidermist and founding member of the French ‘Zoological Society’. In 1873, at the early age of 16, Louis Petit began his travels to Africa. He first went to Senegal, later to Gabon and the Congo, where he lived from 1876 until his return to France in 1883. During the course of his ten-year sojourn in Africa, Louis Petit also collected many ethnological objects, masks, sculptures and much more, purchasing them either on the spot or from missionaries. One hundred years later, in 1982, a grandson of Louis Petit’s donated his grandfather’s collection to the ‘Musée des Beaux-Arts’ in Caen (France). However, before the aforementioned bequest, a Dutch private collector was able to purchase a few objects from Louis Petit’s collection. The present Vuvi mask, which Louis Petit brought from Africa, comes precisely from this Dutch collection. Currently: Belgian Collection. (ME)

Lit.: 'Ancestral Art of Gabon' by Louis Perrois, fig. 25; 'African Art in American Collections' by Robbins & Nooter, fig. 909, 910.