Gouro style mask - Lot 82

Gouro style mask Ivory Coast Wood Height : 53,5 cm This mask decorated with twin heads is synonymous with prosperity. It blesses couples and brings happiness and fertility. The birth of twins is a happy event for the Baule because they are charged with a beneficial force. Here, twinship appears as an indissoluble being; duality is placed at the heart of Baule thought, like the marriage of the sun and the moon. The two faces are identical: a very high forehead, two small eyes, a long nose ending in a mouth carried forward, slightly half-open on two rows of teeth. This double mask is surmounted by a female maternity figure with generous breasts and belly. She has the characteristics of the Baule style: round calves, small rounded buttocks, long tapered fingers.