Jef Vanderstraete (1904-1985), Lasne

Private Collection, Belgium

Jean-Jacques Rotthier Collection (1932-2009), Brussels, then by descent.

Anvers, Etnografisch Museum - MAS Museum aan de Stroom, Face of the Spirits. Masks from the Zaire Basin, 18 September - 31 December 1993

Washington, National Museum of African Art - Smithsonian Institution, Face of the Spirits. Masks from the Zaire Basin, 20 April - 25 September 1994

Paris, Musée Dapper, Signes du corps, 23 September 2004 - 3 April 2005

Brussels, Belgium, Congo, Mythical Masks, La Galerie Bergé, 2009 

Cornet (Joseph), Art de l'Afrique noire au pays du fleuve Zaïre, Bruxelles, 1972, p.155, n°80 

Murray (Jocelyn), Cultural Atlas of Africa, Oxford: Phaidon, 1981, p.2 

Herreman (Frank) & Petrides (Constantin), Face of the Spirits. Masks from the Zaire Bassin, Gent Snoeck, 1993, p. 241

Falgayrettes-Leveau (Christiane), L'écriture sur la peau, Paris : Musée Dapper, 2004, p. 43 

Congo, Mythical Masks, Marc Leo Felix, Bruxelles: Marc Leo Felix Tribal SPRL, 2009, p. 92-93 

This impressive helmet mask, with its large slit eyes, arched eyebrows, and incised geometric motifs across the cheeks and chin, demonstrates the close stylistic affinity of its makers with the Kuba Kingdom. It is distinguished from the masks of neighboring cultures by the three prongs carved at the summit of the head.

During ritual performances, feathers would have been attached to the tips of these three projections. Like the Kuba, the people who created these masks used them in funerary ceremonies and initiation rites.

Collected in the early twentieth century, this monumental mask is among the finest known examples of its type and has been featured in major institutional exhibitions in Europe and the United States.