nummo tondo Wood height 30 3/4in (78cm) length of back flange 38 3/4in (98.5cm) Provenance Renaud Vanuxem, Paris Franklin Family Collection, Portland, Oregon Cf. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Inventory no. 68.145 for a similar mask acquired in 1968 Michael Kan and Roy Sieber note, 'This mask was worn in Dogon funeral rites called Dama to mark the end of the mourning period for a deceased member of the community. Dama serves to restore order and harmony to the living by ensuring the passage of the deceased into the next world and then reintegrating the surviving relatives into the community... ...The Dogon names for these masks translate into "elbow" and "stirring stick" (or "spoon"). The terms probably refer to the angled crest that rises above the face of the mask. These types of masks have been out of use since before 1935 (DeMott, Barbara, Dogon Masks - A Structural Study of Form and Meaning, Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, Studies in Fine Arts, Iconography, 1982, no. 4, p. 90).' (African Masterworks in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, p. 44, fig. 5) Carved from one piece of wood of monumental scale with a large, flat flange rising up from the top and projecting backwards dominating the artwork; the face of classic form with deeply inset eyes pierced in triangular shape, below the rounded forehead, fine, light brown buff patina with wear indicative of significant age.