X65.5820 - Mask

Mask, Cameroon, Bamilieke peoples, Late 19th century, Fowler Museum at UCLA. Gift of the Wellcome Trust. X65.5820

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Mask (tsesah)
Cameroon
Bamileke peoples
Wood, paint, iron dowel, plant fiber, plant gum
Late 19th century
H: 53.34 cm, W: 47.00 cm, D: 30.50 cm (H: 21 in, W: 18.5 in, D: 12 in)
Fowler Museum at UCLA. Gift of the Wellcome Trust. X65.5820

 

INTERPRETATION

Source: Exhibition Wall Text, Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives, 2006

This mask was most likely collected in Bamendjo or Bandjoun by the French Protestant missionary Reverend Franck Christol in the very early twentieth century and then entered the Wellcome Collection in 1932. Approximately a dozen masks have been attributed to the same workshop, each carrying its own name and belonging to a specific ruler. A kingdom possessed only one such mask at a time. The oldest known masks were made by artists in the nineteenth century, and as late as the 1980s, artists at Bandjoun were still making copies of them.

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RELATED VIDEOS

Video: Intersections: Pageantry in the Palace - Bamum Kingdom, Cameroon

Usmanou Nsangou, a native Cameroonian from the Bamum Kingdom now living in Boston, shares his personal encounters with the Bamum king and the life at the royal court in the kingdom’s capital Foumban. He tells us about the vibrant annual ngoun celebrations and remembers the deep impressions some masks used in these gatherings left in him.

Duration: 
4 minutes 45 seconds
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