Dan Mask, Côte d'Ivoire or Liberia

Hubert Goldet, Paris, acquired by 1972

Lucien Van de Velde and Mariette Henau, Antwerp, acquired from the above

René and Odette Delenne, Brussels, acquired from the above

Edith and Guillaume Vranken-Hoet, Brussels, acquired from the above

Raoul Lehuard, "La Collection Vranken-Hoet", Arts d'Afrique Noire, No. 34, Summer, 1980, p. 49

Luc de Heusch et al., Utotombo. L'Art d'Afrique noire dans les collections privées belge / Utotombo. Kunst uit Zwart-Afrika in Belgisch prive-bezit, Brussels, 1988, p. 148, cat. no. 59

Constantine Petridis, “A ‘Harley Mask’ at the Cleveland Museum of Art: More on Masks among the Mano and Dan Peoples”, African Arts, Vol. 45, No. 1, Spring 2012, p. 31, fig. 8

François Neyt, Trésors de Côte d'Ivoire. Aux sources des traditions artistiques, Brussels, 2014, pp. 44-45, cat. no. 18

Constantine Petridis, ed., The Language of Beauty in African Art, Chicago, 2022, p. 207, cat. no. 164

Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Utotombo. L'Art d'Afrique noire dans les collections privées belge / Utotombo. Kunst uit Zwart-Afrika in Belgisch prive-bezit, March 25 - June 5, 1988

The Art Institute of Chicago, The Language of Beauty in African Art, November 22, 2022 - February 27, 2023

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the rich corpus of Dan masks has captured many admirers. It is invariably the human face that is given pride of place, appearing in the most diverse forms and features in accordance with aesthetic canons and tradition. The Dan mask in the Vranken-Hoet Collection stands out from the multitude of Dan faces, for it has all the qualities that make it a masterpiece of its kind.

Herreman notes that “the mythology of the Dan peoples, who live on both sides of the border between Ivory Coast and Liberia, tells that they received the mask, named ge, from their creator, Zlan. As an independent supernatural being, the mask serves as a tool of communication both between humans, and between humans and their ancestors, to help resolve problems of all kinds. For the Dan, the sacred mask acts as an independent character that is unpredictable and needs to be pleased and treated with respect. Otherwise, it may take revenge”.¹

Based on the study of over 480 masks and fieldwork carried out in the Upper Cavally area between 1938 and 1939 under the patronage of the University of Ghent and the Vleeschuis Museum in Antwerp, Jan Vandenhoute's pioneering study on Dan and Guere masks² shed new light on masks from Côte d'Ivoire and established a system of classification which, for Dan and Guere masks in particular, continues to remain the standard. Vandenhoute differentiates between the “Northern” or “Nuclear Style” and the “Southern Style”. The Dan mask from the Vranken-Hoet collection belongs to the “Southern Style”; indeed, it possesses the essential characteristics of this style, and its form and realistic yet idealized features embody Vandenhoute’s concept of “idealized realism”.³ As with masks of the “Northern” style, the shape of the face is ovoid, with rounded reliefs and a concave line. The harmonious air of the Vranken-Hoet mask emphasized by the regularity and symmetry of the features and a formal rigour.

Like most “Southern” masks, the Vranken-Hoet mask is adorned with a vertical forehead rib and has the slit-like eyes that Vandenhoute states are most often characteristic of female masks.⁴ Here, the main feature of this style, apart from the less rounded forehead, is the sharp delineation between the facial plane and the sides of the mask. The surface at the sides is less polished than that of the face itself. It is interesting to note certain similarities between the Vranken-Hoet mask and the Dan mask formerly in the collection of Michel Périnet, which also possesses the classic hallmarks of the “Southern Style”, and with which it shares a graceful beauty.

The face is set in an ideal oval, and the slightly rounded forehead is traversed by a characteristic rib that represents a cosmetic scarification. Here the rib is particularly prominent and it joins the sharp bridge of the nose. The artist's skill in creating a fluid transition to the start of the nose, whose nasal ridge is worthy of the work of the greatest surgeons, is particularly noteworthy. The slenderness of the nose is further accentuated by the remarkable volume of the full lips. The delicately modelled philtrum is almost completely hidden by the upper lip, which is fuller than the lower lip. Together, they form an almost perfect diamond shape. The high points of the cheeks are very slightly swollen and thus appear quite naturalistic, and suggestive of good health. This mask was described in the catalog of the famous Utotombo exhibition, which brought African Art to the forefront of the Belgian cultural scene in the late 1980s: “This mask, carved with extreme meticulousness, is distinguished by the importance of its forehead, which is one of the criteria of Dan beauty. In real life, it is not uncommon to shave the hair to enlarge the forehead. The fine ribbing in the center of the forehead is a stylistic element found especially among the Southern Dan. The slightly recessed, white-tinted band, which ends in a “V” and in which the eyes are finely slanted, is an element found in both Ivorian and Liberian masks. It reproduces the painted decoration on the faces. The triangles on either side of the eyes evoke the “celestial” and “terrestrial” mountains where the ancestors and the living dwell.”⁵

This evocative description of the Vranken-Hoet mask allows us to emphasize the importance of the band that surrounds the eyes and forms two triangles at its end. The band retains some remnants of kaolin, which replicates the decoration painted on women's faces, particularly during ritual celebrations.⁶

Following the classification proposed by Eberhard Fischer and Hans Himmelheber in The Arts of the Dan, the mask from the Vranken-Hoet collection, as well as the related mask from the collection of Edwin and Cherie Silver, which was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, on November 13, 2017, correspond with the deangle type. Fischer and Himmelheber characterize deangle as a mask that “has an oval face; a high forehead which is usually articulated with a central, vertical scar; narrow, slitted eyes which are often painted white […] and a small mouth. Deangle, also known as bonagle, is a character whose names mean ‘joking or laughing masquerade’, indicating that this is a friendly, attractive spirit, one who makes men joyful when he appears. They are associated with the circumcision camp […].”⁷

The late Hubert Goldet did not err when he acquired this masterpiece of Dan sculpture. The mask’s subsequent appearance in several notable publications and exhibitions has further justified his choice. Although the circumstances surrounding its acquisition have been lost, it was undoubtedly one of the first major purchases by Hubert Goldet, then a young collector, who would soon become a close friend of the dealers André Schoeller and Robert Duperrier. Daniel Hourdé paid Goldet a true and moving tribute in the introduction to the catalogue of the sale of his collection in 2001: “His accuracy and promptness were those that urgency imposes on predators, the acuity of his eye and sensitivity authorized the partiality of desire, removing from its author the inhibition of doubt; when encountering the right object, he could apprehend it without vertigo, cherish it and outbid it.”⁸

From Goldet this exceptional Dan mask passed into the hands of Lucien Van de Velde and Mariette Henau, before Odette and René Delenne sold it to the Vranken-Hoets. It had entered the circle of these renowned Belgian collectors and was soon featured in one of the landmark exhibitions in the field, Utotombo at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1988. Almost a quarter of a century later, the American public had the chance to see this masterpiece, which had remained hidden from view in the Vranken-Hoet home, in the exhibition The Language of Beauty in African Art, curated by Constantine Petridis.

The Dan mask from the Vranken-Hoet collection represents the height of the “Southern Style”. It perfectly embodies Dan ideals of beauty and possesses all the qualities that mark out the most admired masks in the corpus. Its striking balance of form, idealized proportions, and the rhythm of concave and convex volumes perfectly encapsulate the realistic style of Dan sculpture, and it is imbued with a spirituality that lends it an eternal force.

¹ Frank Herreman, Facing the Mask, New York, 2002, p. 39

² P. J. L. Vandenhoute, Classification stylistique du masque Dan et Guéré de la Côte d'Ivoire occidentale (A.O.F.), Leiden, 1948, passim

³ Ibid., p. 7

⁴ Ibid., p. 14

⁵ Luc de Heusch et al., Utotombo. L'Art d'Afrique noire dans les collections privées belges, Brussels, 1988, p. 275

⁶ Marie-Noël Verger-Fèvre in Jean-Paul Barbier, ed., Arts de la Côte d’Ivoire dans les collections du musée Barbier-Mueller / Art of Côte d’Ivoire from the Collections of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva, 1993, Vol. II, p. 60

⁷ Eberhard Fischer and Hans Himmelheber, The Arts of the Dan in West Africa, Zürich, 1984, p. 11

⁸ Daniel Hourdé, “Moment sacrificiel” in François de Ricqlès and Antoine Godeau, Paris, Art primitifs. Collection Hubert Goldet, June 28-29, 2001, p. 7