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Helmet Mask
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
The iconography of this helmet mask is comprised of sculpted renderings of different animal attributes including a ram's horns, a warthog's tusks, a crocodile's mouth, and a hyena's snout. Carved between the long antelope horns is a miniature chameleon that holds an abstract wing-shaped motif called mangele. Intended to impress and terrify, the sculpture's fearsome aesthetic alludes to the mask's power as an anti-sorcery device.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineHelmet Mask, early to mid-1900s. Western Sudan, Ivory Coast, Senufo, 20th century. Wood; overall: 122 cm (48 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Katherine C. White, 1972.336
