Face Mask

Late 19th or early 20th century

Possibly Attie/Atye/Akye or Adiukru
Unknown Lagoons region, Côte d’Ivoire
Coastal West Africa

Some of the masquerades that were popular across southern and central Côte d’Ivoire in the 19th and early 20th centuries have evolved and remain active today, but the small, flat masks of the various interrelated peoples of the southern Lagoon region have faded and grown obsolete. This is one of only three such masks housed in a museum collection. Animal fur (possibly monkey) stands in for hair and a beard while the circular mark on the forehead represents a shaved hairstyle.

Status: On View, Gallery 137
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Adiukru
Title: Face Mask
Place: Côte d'Ivoire (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1875–1925
Medium: Wood, pigment, and fur
Dimensions: H.: 26.4 cm (10 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: African and Amerindian Art Purchase Fund; through prior acquisition from the Gaffron Collection
Reference Number: 1962.473

Jacqueline Delange, Arts et Peuples de l’Afrique Noire (Paris: Editions Gallemard, 1967), p. 263, fig. 57. [The Art and Peoples of Black Africa, trans. Carol F. Jopling (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1974), p. 83, fig. 49].
Allen Wardwell, Primitive Art in the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 1965), n. pag., pl. 64.
Warren M. Robbins and Nancy Ingram Nooter, African Art in American Collections (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), p. 190, fig. 404.
Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 26, pp. 82-83 (ill.).

Roger Bediat (died 1958), Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and Paris, France, by late 1930s [see Primitive Art in the Collections of the AIC, 1965, no. 64, as Ex Coll. Bediat; this and the following information provided by personal communication with Hélène (ex-Kamer) Leloup, October 1982, documented in curatorial file]; by descent to his step-son Georges Stoecklin (died 1997), Nice and Cannes, France, 1958; sold to Henri and Hélène (ex-Kamer) Leloup, Henri A. Kamer Gallery, New York, N.Y.; sold to the Art Institute, May 1962.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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