3 - Masque antilope Chamba, Nigeria

Masque antilope Chamba, Nigeria Early 20th century Wood 62 × 58 × 18 cm With a fantastical presence, this rare Chamba mask is striking for the purity of its construction and the vertical sweep of its long horns. Carved from dense wood, the face—reduced to essential lines—unfolds around a powerful triangular muzzle, while the small lateral ears and the double curve of the horns accentuate its animalistic character, somewhere between an antelope and a wild buffalo. The Chamba people primarily inhabit the middle Benue Valley region, in eastern Nigeria and extending into western Cameroon. Their zoomorphic masks were associated with grand masquerades, particularly funeral and initiation rites in which the animal figure embodied the transition between the human world and that of the bush. Some examples also served a protective function for the community. The sculpture is distinguished here by its masterful stylization: a compact skull, broad forehead, a muzzle projecting forward, and tapered horns that seem to extend the form toward the sky. This economy of means, characteristic of the great sculptural traditions of the Benue, gives the mask a presence that is at once rough, archaic, and striking, where the animal’s power arises less from detail than from the tension of the forms. Provenance - Galerie Huguenet, Paris - Belgian private collection