Forehead Mask
Southeast Alaska
ca. 1840-60
wood, operculum shell, paint
length: 9"
Inventory # CN4313-112
Please contact the gallery for more information.
PROVENANCE
Oregon Historical Society, deaccessioned in the 1950's
Robert Cambell, Portland, OR
EXHIBITED
Canada House, Trafalgar Square,London, England, 1998, on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee.
EXHIBITED
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2007-2008
RELATED EXAMPLES
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, Saint Petersburg, Cat. No. 2448-2 – See: Yuri E. Berezkin (ed.), Tlingit: Catalogue of the Kunstkamera, St. Petersburg: Russian Academy of Sciences, 2007, pg. 211, pl. 248
For a wolf mask collected by George T. Emmons at Sitka, Alaska, ca. 1914 see:
Ex collection Museum of the American Indian, Cat. No. 3/6651 – See: Allen Wardwell, Yakutat South: Indian Art of the Northwest Coast, Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago Press, 1964, pg. 32, pl. 54
For a wolf mask collected by Edward G. Fast in 1867-68 see:
Ex collection Peabody Museum Harvard University, Cat. No. 1588 – See: Ibid, pg. 32, pl. 55 and pg. 33, pl. 53
For two wolf masks collected by George T. Emmons on the Alsek River, Alaska, before 1893 and Yandestaki, Alaska, ca. 1882-1887 see:
American Museum of Natural History, Cat. Nos. E 1598 and 19/995 – See: Allen Wardwell, Tangible Visions: Northwest Coast Indian Shamanism and its Art, New York: The Monacelli Press, 1996, pg. 128, pls. 118 and 119
Superbly carved in the image of a wolf, the image is readily identifiable by the elongated snout and high forehead. The widely opened eyes, pricked ears and bared canine teeth made of operculum greatly animate the mask, capturing the intelligent and curious nature of the carnivore with remarkable artistic sensibility.