Two-Figure Ceremonial Igbo Mask

Herbert Cole and Chike Aniakor write in Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos that “traditional cults and masquerade associations—long very active art patrons—were viable and well-supported through the 1940s and the 1950s.” This was true despite the growing number of conversions to Christianity across West Africa and the already-dominant wave of Westernization. In time, “spirit cults and their executive and judicial maskers” were virtually replaced “by colonial administrators and police as agents of sociopolitical regulation and control.” This exquisite, polychromed, vertical mask featuring two figures is thus a special vestige of traditional Igbo culture and the vibrant masquerade customs of the past.

27″

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