Lot: 419

78th tribal art auction

Mask "moshambwooy"

D. R. Congo, Bushoong

Provenance Size Starting price / estimated price
Carlo von Castelberg, Zurich, Switzerland H: 15.7 inch sold

rattan framework, covered with plant fibre bast, decorated with embroidered cowrie shells and strings of glass beads, the facial plane covered with leather, seperate carved wooden ears and nose, grass fibre cuff at the lower rim, min. dam., slight traces of abrasion;
"moshambwoooy" is the highest, royal mask in the hierarchy of the Kuba-Bushoong. It depicts "woot", the ancestor of the clan.


Weinhold, Ulrike,The Eternal Face, Berg en Dal 2000, p. 203, ill. 2