Papua New Guinea
Miniature Flute Mask, End 19th Century/Early 20th Century
Wood, East Sepik Province
18.25 inches (height)

Provenance
Private Collection, England
Collection of Jean Baptiste Bacquart, London

According to Bounoure (2009), the ceremonies and festivities organized in men's houses were an opportunity to resonate large horizontal drums and "sacred flutes forming pairs of unequal size and sounding differently, one male, the other female, and played simultaneously. In the villages of the mouth of the Sepik and the Murik lakes, a carved wooden mask was attached to each of these flutes, representing a half-human/half-animal face decorated with tassels of fibers, feathers, and pendants. He also specifies that the front of these masks often presents a representation of a bird or another animal. See Bounoure (2009, p.235) for a comparable mask acquired by the University of Ghent from the Berlin Museum in 1905.