Headdress
early 1900s
- Medium
- Wood, human hair, paint, and possibly kaolin
- Classification
- Mask
- Dimensions
- Overall: 20.4 x 17.8 x 16.2 cm (8 1/16 x 7 x 6 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Idoma-style carver
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, African Art
- Credit line
- James Albert and Mary Gardiner Ford Memorial Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This was used in masked performances of the Agrinya society, a powerful guild formerly restricted to men who had killed an elephant, lion, or man. The white pigment connotes the realm of the ancestors, while the aggressive expression of the face seems to suggest the courage of Agrinya society members.
