Torso (Igbo). Nigeria.

Wood, height: 66 cm.

Private collection.

 

 

Most likely part of an ensemble of life-sized painted wood figures, this fragment of a masked head on a torso may have once adorned a men’s meeting-house. The mask appears to be a calabash, the neck of which slightly projects over the forehead. The curvilinear patterns on the mask were guidelines for pigment.

The shrine and meeting-houses represented an idealised community and once contained numerous figures. Many shrine meeting-houses existed among the eastern Igbo communities near the turn of the century. Since then, most of the sculptures have been dispersed and the houses dismantled, though some have been rebuilt in cement and now have modern carvings and figures lining the walls.