An Important and Rare Eskimo Polychrome Wood Mask, Yup'ik or Anvik

of tapering oval form, carved in high relief with a stylized human face, with a deep bifurcating groove descending downwards from the central cranium, each side drilled with five openings probably for insertion of wood or metal pegs (now missing), concave eye frames, pierced eye holes with painted "goggles" and overhanging and ridged brow line, flaring frown lines and two raised labrets replace the mouth and form the face of a sea mammal, possibly a seal, additional painted details including tattoos on the chin and coiffure in black, and rouged cheeks, the reverse with a wood "grip" and fine aged patina; the periphery trimmed with (remains of) fur.

Fred Harvey Collection

Presented in 1926 as "Aleutian Eskimo Mask" by James B. Ford to the Heye Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, 6/2469

Deaccessioned via exchange with Julius Carlebach, January 1945

Acquired from the above

Very good original condition with typical wear for its age including heavy wear to the fur ruff, surface abrasion and fade of the pigments (particularly the red). There is a small chip near the chin. There is also a surface hairline crack near chin, stable.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

For a discussion of Eskimo masks and their uses see Ray, 1967, pp. 17-19: "Masks were worn far more in festival dancing than in shamanistic activities, but the shaman's role in their conception and carving cannot be completely understood without a discussion of their use by him. Some nineteenth-century observers said that the medicine man never used a mask while treating patients, but consulted the spirits, bare-faced, inside his gut-skin parka. However, masks were widely used for curing in the North, though apparently reserved only for cases that had wider implications than a simple illness. For example, if the illness had been caused by breaking a rule, the spirits concerned might bring further troubles to everyone....The shaman most commonly used masks to consult with spirits at a time of crisis, wearing a spirit mask to investigate the cause...The shaman sometimes used masks on his visits to the land of the dead...."

pp. 23-24:

To those who remember the great feats of the shaman, the mask remains one of the mysteries that accompanied his activities. Nevertheless, it was also an object that became of importance to everyone because it was worn by lay dancers, as well as for its ceremonial and artistic values. Of even greater importance was the personification of the spirit world by the shaman in such a form that the visually minded Eskimo was able to see some of the results of shamanistic activity. In this way, he validated the shaman's successful rapport with the spiritual world and reinforced his own relationship to it – in some cases, even after death. The tremendous range in subject matter and style of masks in any one area, and the successful visual realization of imagined forms, can be explained in terms of cultural acceptance and encouragement of such activity. Fe primitive cultures have been more concerned with the conscious pursuit of art than the Eskimo. Thus, the creation of a specific esthetic form from an abstract image or dream was not only the privilege of the artist, but the expectation of others who were to see the finished product."

For information on symbolism used in Eskimo masks see Fitzhugh and Kaplan, 1982, p. 198: "When making masks...a craftsman utilizes a variety of standard visual forms to symbolize religious and other concepts known to the people who regularly view these objects. A man is typically shown with an upturned mouth or with labrets under the corners of his mouth; a woman with a down-turned mouth, frowning mouth, and perhaps a central lower lip labret and radiating chin tattoos....Masked visages and transformed characters are signaled by the use of black spectacle goggles, by black circles around the eyes, or by sections of goggle frames....Analogy to lunar phases is suggested by round and crescentic eyes and twisted mouths. Magical treatment or indications of spiritness are also shown by using red, white, or orange spots, or by eyes in the middle of red painted ovals. However, the specific meaning of many of these remains unclear."

For information on the material used to construct masks see Ray, 1967, p. 58: "The mask makers utilized almost every material they could lay hands on for decorative purposes. The following inventory, obtained from an examination of about 250 masks, is but a sampling of the total array. Nevertheless it will serve to show the lengths to which  the carver exploited his  environmental and trading resources: feathers (large ones from eagles, geese, ducks, gulls, swans, and horned owls; smaller ones from ptarmigan, terns, and the tail feathers of the old squaw duck), swan's down, stripped feather quills, porcupine quills, hair (reindeer, caribou, wolf, dog and human), seal pup fur, Alaskan cotton, beach grass, willow bark, willow root, rawhide strips, bleached strips of intestines (natural color or dyed red or black), baleen pendants, beads, string pieces of crockery, brass, copper, lead, iron, cartridge shells, ivory pieces of wood in various shapes, and animal teeth (usually dog)."

Also see Fagg, 1972, p. 27:" Fine shades of colours are not differentiated by these people, but they have names for most of the primary colours. Colouring matter is obtained from various sources...White is made from white clayey earth; yellow and red from ochreous earth; red is also obtained from oxide iron; black is made from plumbago, charcoal, or gunpowder, the two latter being mixed with blood...For the purpose of storing their fragments of paint the Eskimo use boxes somewhat similar in general character to those used for tools, save they are very much smaller."

For a reference on the use of the grip found on the reverse of this mask cf. Ray, 1967, p. 20: "Large, lightweight masks were used similarly during dimly lighted dances and séances. When a shaman placed his face on the inside of a mask it appeared to stick to him by magic, but actually he gripped a mouthpiece with his teeth. The spectators did not know (or at least pretended not to know) how the mask remained on his face without support because they were not allowed to inspect a shaman's mask..."

 

For a discussion of masks as they relate to mythology in Eskimo culture see Fitzhugh and Kaplan, 1982, p. 180: "Mythology plays an important role in the people's everyday lives and its cast of characters forms the basis for stories and dramatic presentations in the qasgiq. When used as illustrations or carvings, images of mythological characters serve both as decorative emblems and as mnemonic devices – keys to characters and sequences of events that take place in a story or set of related stories – and give visual substance to oral traditions. The illustration of mythological characters and events seen on the inside covers of men's work boxes is more strongly and publicly affirmed through painted and incised drawings on ladles, wooden bowl bottoms, ivory wedges, boats, masks, and other artifacts."

p. 187:

"The ability of men and women to transform themselves into other beings, while always retaining their inuas, result in an unpredictable world in which one cannot be sure of true identity of any given creature. A powerful, potentially evil spirit may take the form of a weasel and or a mouse to eavesdrop on men's intentions or to bring aid to a captured person....Shaman's make use of transformations in their performances and magic...These transformations may be the basis for the many 'half-creatures' known in Bering Sea stories and mythology."

For a discussion of the relationship between Surrealism and Eskimo art see Collins, de Laguna, Carpenter and Stone, p. 284: "The story of the cubist's discovery of West African art is familiar. The story of the surrealists' discovery of American Indian art, and especially Eskimo art, is equally important. Eskimo carvings of animals are often so accurate, so detailed, one can tell at a glance not only species, but sub-species...But when the same artist chooses to depict the world of dream and séance, he replaces realism with surrealism, and structures space with the ear, not the eye. In Eskimo thought, where spirit is regarded as separable from flesh, and each man has many helping spirits, the lines between species and classes, even between man and animal, are lines of fusion, not fission, and nothing has a single, invariable shape. Eskimo artists – both in ancient and recent times – often depict these diverse characteristics simultaneously. One striking type of mask is a great visual pun: the same lines serve to depict walrus-caribou man; turned this way, walrus stands out; turned another way caribou predominates. But, though other features regress, they never wholly disappear. There is no need for shape shifting: all relevant forms are always present. And so it is in Eskimo mythology: not a concept of becoming, not even a concept of metamorphosis or coming to be, but rather a sense of being, where each form contains multitudes....The familiar Western notion of enclosed space is foreign to the Eskimo. They do not regard space as static and therefore measurable: hence they have no formal units of spatial measurement, just as they have no uniform divisions of time. The carver, when he chooses, is indifferent to the demands of the eye: he lets each piece fill its own space, create its own world, without reference to background or anything external to it. Each carving lives in spatial independence. Size and shape, proportions and selection, these are set by the object itself, not forced from without. Like sound, each mask creates its own space, its own identity: it makes its own assumptions."

For a discussion of the Surrealists and the distinct provenance of this mask as it relates to Robert Lebel, who documented this mask in a color drawing, and others see Fienup-Riordan, 1996, p. 263: "In 1944 Robert Lebel created one of the most remarkable legacies of this intense period of interaction between Yup'ik masks and their Surrealist admirers. Lebel was deeply involved in the New York Surrealist movement and was especially impressed by the work of Breton...Studying alongside Breton and others, Lebel carefully documented his own masks as well as those of his friends. In a small, lined notebook, Lebel rendered color drawings of fifty-six masks, forty from Museum of American Indian collections. At the upper right corner of each page he wrote the initials or surname of the artists or poet who purchased the mask – R.L. for himself, A.B. for Andre Breton, I.W. for Isabel Walberg, Donati for Enrico Donati, and Duthuit for Georges Duthuit."

For related examples see Fienup-Riordan, 1996, pp. 50 and 179, each collected by Sheldon Jackson, the latter two at Andreafski; also see p. 56 for a mask collected by J.A. Jacobsen on the Kuskokwim;  also see Ray, 1967, p. plate 4, for a mask identified as northwest Bering Sea but also characteristic of the Anvik; see Collins, de Laguna, Carpenter and Stone, p.136 for a mask collected from the Indian village at Kozherevsky, left bank of the Yukon opposite Holy Cross, by Father Barnum in 1893; finally, see Rousselot et al, 1991, p. 186, for a mask identified as Yup'ik and containing both female and male characteristics collected in 1901 by J.J. Wilcox.