Chokwe Cotton Mask, Angola, Based

A polished red face above a long veil of netting. She gives nothing away.

This mask is Chokwe, from Angola, Central Africa, mid 20th century, made of wood with raffia, hair, cotton, beads, cowrie shells and colonial button embellishments, and mounted on a base. Chokwe dancers wear carved masks at celebrations and initiations, and face masks of this kind are widely associated with a female ideal of beauty and with ancestors. Filed teeth show in a small open mouth. Lidded eyes sit in pale, rounded sockets. A band of white beads, shells and a coiled disc crowns the fibrous cap, and a green knotted net falls below the chin. Twenty-two and a half inches high.

Composed, adorned and entirely in command of the room.