Collectable Masks, do they have to be old?

Much is being discussed about the age of African art objects as if it is the age rather than the quality that maters. It is as if more recent objects cannot have the quality that a collector would seek.
I show a red Dan entertainment mask here a recent addition to my collection it did not cost a lot of money but I think it has all the attributes of a good collectable Dan mask.



The face is of typical Dan form with pointed chin pouting mouth and the profile shows the expected dished curve. To me it is obviously carved by an artist that is in touch with and understands his roots and is fully aware of Tribal traditions rather than some one imitating an object that they have seen purely for sale. The fur moustache and animal teeth inserted into the mouth with pitch all indicate an object made for a tribal use, probably entertainment. There are also traces that indicate that feathers or fur was attached to the forehead and there would also have been metal rings around the circular eyes which are also missing. The horns are beautifully carved as are all the details of the face which is covered in a thick bright red oil paint. Not very traditional but all tribal artists were attracted to and used the bright colours made available through trade even though they were not always attractive to many of our eyes, this is also true in tribal textiles.


There is also roll of hand woven cotton fabric attached to the rim of the mask and two tie straps to attach the mask to the face all indicate that this is an authentic although not very old very collectable Tribal mask to me. The mask also just feels good to handle it has that balance that you get with a successful sculpture.
The Dan are among the groups of African tribes that are still making masks for their own use and offer the collector the opportunity to have a collection of these fascinating objects at a reasonable cost.

Dear Mr. Young,

i agree with you, also recent objects can be collectable. If the quality and the price is O.K. There´s nothing against to said. There are also good carvers now a days. (New Sacred Art - Yoruba, eg. Kasali Akangbe or Buraimoh Gbadamosi ). I think as long it follows the traditional way and it´s conceptet for the use there is no reason to take about a fake. A good example for those new collectable objects was the exhibition " World in Movement -Gelede mask of the Anago-Yoruba ( Benin)" in Berg en Dal. This exhibition shows a lot of newer but used masks from the Gelede ritus.

Best regards

Dave

Hi Ian,

I agree with Dave. I think there are two reasons why so many collectors gravitate toward the older stuff.
1. It's more likely to have been made for use within a community. The amount of artwork made for sale to tourists and western collectors is much greater within the past, say, 30 years, even though some tourist art was being made more than 100 years ago.
2. The fact that something is antique, in itself, makes many things collectible. This extends into African art, although almost none of it is old enough to be considered antique in most genres (in the US, an antique is something more than 100 years old - among African art collectors, 50 years or so is adequate for this descriptor).

I think your mask is neat, too, by the way.

Regards,

Steve Price

Thanks Steve and Dave for your repiies.
I just want to give encouragement to anyone out there wanting to start collecting Tribal art showing that they can have a good collection for an affordable price without it being airport art or fakes.
It always amazes me how many zeros are added to the value of a work with a 'provenance' it is as if it is the provenance that has the value more than the object.
I aggree with the advice else where on afro-dit read, look at and handle as much as you can and be guided by your eye and your own judgement.
Has anyone else got any not so old work that they could share with us?

Hi Ian,

I suspect that collectors have more young pieces than they like to think they have. Here's one of mine,



It's from Cameroon, and is very likely to be authentic according to the experts who have seen it, but is also not terribly old - I'd guess it was made around 1970. I think it's a wonderful piece.

Ralph Proctor is a dealer who, a few years ago, did an exhibition of African tribal art that is authentic but not very old and, therefore, not very expensive. It can be seen at http://www.introspecinc.com/gallery/exhibit.htm

Regards,

Steve Price

Hi Steve
I am sure that many of us would be pleased to have your grassland mask in our own collections.
From the picture it appears to illustrates my point that if we look for carvings that appear honest, that are carved with the confidence of a sculpture who understands what he is carving rather than just immitating what he has seen we can build a good collection.
I also beleive that are still good finds to be made with masks and sculptures appearing on the market with no proveance that have good age being sold quite cheaply because auction houses do not have the time nor the resources to do all the research.
This is where the collector with modest means can have a lot of fun and at the end of the day you may find the occasional treasurer and if you have bought a fake then you have only paid the decorative value for it and it is a good learning experience.
Regards
Ian

Hi Steve
I thought I would show you another of my not so old but interesting Dan masks.

It is a very well carved with a thin body typical of many Dan masks, it is only 21cms in height. There is an aquisition number (4334) in white on the inside rim and a paper label that reads 18/1974 which would suggest the collection date. I would not think the mask to be much older than this although it does have evidence of some use and a patina suggesting that it was not collected new of the shelf.
It has aluminium surrounds to the eyes and three aluminium teeth at either side of a protruding red tongue. The hair is styled with a centre parting and braided extensions in front of the ears which are pierced.
The treatment of the hair particularily the centre parting suggests to me a mixture of a colonial image with an African one but this is well recorded in African Art and I am familiar with many Yoruba works with a colonial style.
I seem to remember reading somewhere about a play popular with the Dan where one of the characters was a boy who stuck his tongue out at the audience but I cannot remember where I read this since I got this mask.
I would appreciate any comments or suggestions on this small mask

ssome personal thoughts

Some thoughts about art, authentic, antique and africa...

All patented artist works, and had worked, to produce artistic objects. This is art for art but Art cannot be defined only as a creation of an artist.
For me is art everything I have pleasure to look at because it appeals to my personal sense of aesthetics. Intended primarily to be Art or not. Concorde airplane for exemple.
The notion of Art is essentialy subjective.
What is an antique ? Something made long ago, one hundred years for lawiers and customs people. But would you call antique say a plain wooden stool two hundred years old ? Fortunously plain furniture were often discarded before gaining that age.
If lord Elgin had not stoolen Parthenon scuptures, they will have disapeared, broken off to make roads basement.
Only the best looking pieces remains to day and forms the corpus of antiques.
So a real antique is a piece of age having an intrinsic artistic value.
Now had an object to be an antique to be an art object ?
Is Pratixele more an artist than Bottero, Vermeer than Basquiat or Riesener than Leleu ? Of course no.
Apart scarcity what makes the value of art ?
Some people, numerous ones in fact will reply : the market of course. All right but look : if a wealthy person give a milion dollars for a plate of dog’s dirt, eventualy painted pink, is the dog an artist or the buyer a clown?
For my part I look at auctions catalogs only to gain in knowledge about art.
And I buy only what my wallet can afford.
About authenticity and age :
For furniture we, in france at least, use legally these denominations:
- d’ Epoque who refers to a piece made during the period where the peculiar style was predominant. In general these pieces are signed by a master and/or have an indisputable pedigree.
- de Style who refers to a piece made in respecting the canons of the style but after the Epoch.
When they are a century old or more they qualified for Ancien de Style. De Style only when they have less age.
Only pieces d’Epoque and Anciennes de Style could be qualified as antique and authentic, all the rest is qualified copy.
- Copie d’ Ancien : done recently using old wood, old techniques. They look new.
- Copie de Style : done recently using new wood and modern techniques. They look new too.
Apart these five categories we also have :
- Faux : a fake is an Copie d’Ancien deliberatly and artificially aged to look older and authentic. Bears generaly phony stamped marks or signature. Scarcely made nowadays and always for export.
- Replique : a replica is ‘ un vrai faux “(a true false) done to replace a d’ Epoque object belonging to a pair and destroyed by fire for exemple. Unlike the Faux it bears a real stamped mark with the name of the ebenist and the date of fabrication. Quite rare and seems reserved for museums or castels.
Why do I bore you with classifications that don’t apply in your country ? It is only to explain why europeans differs from americans in their appreciation of antique, authentic and art in general.
So what about Antique Authentic African Art ?
- Speaking of art, stricto sensu, regarding ethnic artifacts, as african ones are and remain, is higly hasardous because apart some pieces made for kings, the majority of these objects was not intended to be art pieces but rather religious objects
without significance outside the peculiar cult they were made for. (The case of utilitarian objects, such as spoons, is slightly different because they are embelished by carving, on purpose.)
Meanwhile when an ethnic production appeals to the sense of aesthetics of so numerous people it seems, for me on the less, not inapropriate to use the term of Art.
- Speaking on antique about african objects is presomptuous. Climate, pests and wars have destroy the majority of them. Remnants are those buy or stollen long ago by colonials, missionaries or ethnologists and are outside africa now. But precisely because the extrem rapidity of wear in these countries it is not cheating to revise our criteria and called antique an african artifact aged fifty and even forty years old.
- Authenticity: You can call authentic an ethnic artifact which had fullfiled the purpose for which he was made. Even if it was never used such as twin N’Tomo masks where one of the two remains untouched in the sanctuary of the fraternity.
So Antique and Authentic African Art exists.
The question now is : could I afford AAAA piece for my collection ?
After WorldWar II the need for new ( to replace worn ones) religious artifacts have strongly faded away due to advancing muslim and catholic religions coupled with the rural exodus.
And in nowadays Africa the dollar cult had take the place of the ancestor cult. If Secret societies still exist and are very strong, the artifacts they still use you’ll never had a chance to see them and less to grab one.
And those who hope that wars will bring “ authentic material” to their houses made a mistake. An african militia man will never touch a real cultural object pertaining to an ennemy .It fears it and burn it instead.
But due to this disaffection discarded cultural and authentic ethnics object are still findable in secluded places.( eight days for a one hundred miles travel sounds a joke for an american but remains the truth in the bush)
It is useless to wear an Indiana Jones costume and try by yourself. Even if you reach the village they’ll never show you nothing or perhaps if you are lucky enough they’ll sell you one or two broken dolls and a worn out mask.
The strengh of the runners is first they are africans, second they speaks the dialect and above all they master african bargaining. Often they do not paid with money wich is useless in the bush but rather barter the pieces with portables radio sets or petrolem refrigerators.
So if you don’t have the chance to be on the adress book of several good runners, you’ll never see any authentic antique african piece outside museums and expensives galleries.
What is left for the collector nowadays ?
- Fakes, real fakes are extremely expensive pieces because they are hard to make. Intended to delude real connoisseurs the amount of work they need is astonishing and even in Africa skilled labor costs.
- Copies are more common and if you don’t have a huge library or a large iconography, because they are always copies of famous and well known authentic pieces, you can be catched.
- Modern pieces, ie made for trade since say thirty years from now are honest and fair, often with high artistic value and if they appeals, are collectables without shame.
- Airport art is airport art, it can apeals too but you cannot honestly pretend to be a collector or a conoisseur with that kind of stuff to show on.
Incidentaly remember that we are now in the 21th century and that without liyng at all someone could garanty you 20th century for a piece made in 1999 !
B.Chaine.

Hi Bernard,

The French system for classifying antiques is something I didn't know about, and most Americans probably don't know about it either. Thanks for the information.

As some of our readers know, I collect tribal textiles from western and central Asia, and edit a website (http://www.turkotek.com/) on that subject. Im struck with the similarity of concerns that collectors of those textiles have with collectors of African art: attribution of age, place or tribe of origin, authenticity are major issues for both groups. Recently, a German rug collector proposed a classification system for tribal rugs on Turkotek, and it is very closely related to the one the French use for antiques. He was greeted with hoots of derision from some of our participants, who thought the scheme totally unworkable. But if it works for the French with antiques (does it work?), there's no reason why it shouldn't work anywhere else with different objects. Would you object to my quoting you on Turkotek?

Thanks again,

Steve Price

Red Dan mask

Thanks for posting this mask as I helps expand my knowledge. The few that I have are all dark/black. I was wondering if the Dan used color and now I see an example.

Bernard, I just signed up here and want to quickly thank you for tking the time to post the "grading" / evaluation system. Very informative.

collectible

Here is a link that Steve Price set up for me of a whimsical piece that I would like know if it is repesentative of airport or tourist art thanks

Hi Greg,

This is an Ashante akua'ba; I think it was made for the western buyer. Most "authentic" (made for use within the community) ones have no legs, although some of the more recent ones (say, from 1950 or 1975 on) have a pair of legs. They also usually have just stubs for arms, and I've never seen one with a beard.

They were made for women who wanted to conceive children, and were carried around and sometimes tucked into the woman's waste sash. Lots of projections from the central core of the piece would have been impractical, as would very large size.

This one is in the second section of Weaving and Wood.



I'm not very proud of the photographic reproduction, but haven't gotten around to replacing it with a better image. Editor's note: The image now in place is a replacement for the original one. It is clear enough to let you see the essential features of the older traditional pieces, though.

Regards,

Steve Price

collectible

Thanks Steve. I have several replicas of the doll you show that fall into the category of made for tourists. Iplan to give them to my granddaughters (collecting for three now) when the get a little older. How does one post a jpeg. to show and tell? I will catch on and you will no longer have to baby-sit me along.

Hi Greg,

Unless you have access to web space that you can put the image into (in which case the message software will prompt you on how to make it display), the best thing way is to send the image file to me as an e-mail attachment. I'll put it into our server and send you back the code line to make it appear in a message.

Regards,

Steve Price

Gregs figure is a very good illustration of a reasonably well carved and decorative sculpture but the carver has not followed the traditions. Instead he has mixed up the head of an akua'ba doll with the body of another figure and I am not sure where the long beard has come from.
While art for their own tribal use does evolve there is always a deep understanding of what went before and a continuity of the design, Gregs piece is a leap too far.
At least it is an honest work made for sale and not made to deceive anyone.
I do think they will make excellent gifts for your grandchildren, quite unlike anything that their friends are likely to have and could well give them a life long interest in the arts.
Do not apologise for your poor picture of your akua'ba Steve, photgraph it again and let us see better what looks like a beautiful carving.
Regards Ian

collectible

Thanks Ian. That is what I supposed it to be and is more finely carved than the pictures show, but still as I might say " out there somewhere" as far as style. It is a combination for sure. If you don't mind I would like to send you a graphic of a mask that I don't want to put here because I don't think it is African but I am still trying to trace its origins.

Hi people,

The image of my akua'ba in one of the previous posts in this thread (and in Weaving and Wood) has been replaced with a better one. I don't think National Geographic will be calling me up next time they need a photographer, but I think you can see most of the relevant details on the piece now.

It's only about 6 inches high, and the beads are so tiny that I have trouble imagining how anyone strung them.

I believe the rings carved on the neck represent rolls of fat, symbolizing prosperity.

Regards,

Steve Price

Thanks for the new picture Steve. I can see it more clearly now.
I just love akua'ba carvings and some of the other tribal dolls.
The beads just add to the charm of them, one day I hope that I will find a nice one at a price that I can afford.
Regards
Ian