Wan-balinga Mask
Mask (wan-balinga)
Attribution follows a published museum catalogue or peer-reviewed scholarship. Object is held in a public collection under a published accession number.
Only the farmers among the Mossi people employ masks. This mask’s proper name, wan-balinga, evokes a mythical figure who was the mother of the first Mossi ruler. Such masks are most typically worn and danced with on the occasion of the funeral of a male or female elder as escorts of the corpse to the grave. They also appear during annual memorial services that occur months after the actual burial, when all the deceased clan members are commemorated and honored.
Catalogued by Cleveland Museum of Art as “Mask (wan-balinga)”, dated early 1900s. Harvested from the museum’s open-access record; every field below is copied from that record and none of it has been inferred.
Record
| People / culture | Mossi |
|---|---|
| Country | Burkina Faso |
| Common name | Mask (wan-balinga) |
| Materials | Wood and paint |
| Dimensions | Overall: 34 x 14 x 14 cm (13 3/8 x 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.) |
Provenance
Charles Ratton, Paris, France (before 1967)
Evelyn Annenberg Hall & William Jaffe, New York, NY (1967–?)
Galerie Jacques Germain, Montreal, Canada
(Galerie Jacques Germain, Montreal, Canada, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?–2014)
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (2014–)
| Collection | Cleveland Museum of Art |
|---|---|
| Accession number | 2014.1 |
Source
https://clevelandart.org/art/2014.1
This record is a catalogue entry, not an appraisal, valuation or legal determination. Nothing here should be read as evidence that an object was lawfully acquired or exported.