Q: I was given this mask as a gift from a friend with quite a bit of African masks. I’d like to know it’s value. I do not collect them but the giver does, and he has a large collection. Most were given to him from patients, mainly from Africa. I have more pictures if needed. Thank you. Michelle, 1635 A: Instead of featuring your mask, I put it in second place. The big photo is from a blog I posted more than two years ago. This mask certainly looks like an authentic Ntomo, but it could be a carefully made reproduction. If the latter, it will still be a…

Q: I have a baga nimba mask (full size) and paperwork for it. It came from a prominent tribal collector in Boston. I am curious as to what you believe it would be valued around or if a market for this exists. Here are photos of the mask. Let me know your thoughts. Adam, 1634 A: The most important of the Baga art forms is the great mask, or Nimba. It represents the mother of fertility, protector of pregnant women, and presides over all agricultural ceremonies. The dancer, wearing a full raffia costume, carries the mask on his shoulders, looking out through holes between the breasts. In use, such masks…

Q: Hello from Belgium. Here is one of my favorites from my collection of masks of the world. It is 19th century and a part of the objects brought back from Congo during the 1st Belgian expedition organized by the CCI (Compagnie pour le Commerce et l’Industrie) to Katanga 1891-1893 and led by Alexandre Delcommune. This is the first Royal Kuba masks, Ngaady a Mwaash, known to be brought in Belgium in 1893 and probably the only known to date to have the nape covered with commercial fabric that was a royal exclusive Kuba privilege before the submission of the Kuba Kingdom in 1904. It comes from the estate of…

Q: Picked this up at an auction. There is some damage on the top, but I don’t know what caused it. Wondering how old this is and where it is from? Despite the damage, is it still collectible? Pat, 1628 A: You have found an attractive mask and asked some good questions. Damage like this doesn’t lower its value… but being a reproduction does. To the average collector this is good news because an old and used piece would cost so much more. It was probably made recently, but age is of little concern for a reproduction. What you have is collectible. The Baule are one of the Akan peoples.…

In the Dogon communities of Mali, West Africa, masked dancers perform, creating a brilliantly colored, ever-changing spectacle of sculpture, costume, song, and dance. During his research in the 1930s French anthropologist Marcel Griaule documented more than seventy different mask types, representing animals, birds, human characters, and abstract concepts, which he considered to be a visual summary of the world surrounding the Dogon people. Griaule saw the ceremonies as a stunning materialization of the close links between contemporary Dogon society and the many stages of life and death, prosperity and hardship, etc. We collectors sometimes forget that most of these Dogon masks tend to change as time goes by. The style…