Currently not on view
Maskette (lukwakongo),
late 19th–early 20th century
More Context
Didactics
Lega men and women aspire to high rank in the Bwami initiation association. Small sculpted faces owned by male members of the second highest grade of Bwami serve as important insignia of rank and are kept hidden when not in use. The maskettes are not worn over the face, but held in the hand, displayed in groups, or attached to hats as symbols of the owner’s status. Called <em>lukakongo</em> and carved as a stylized representation of an adult male, such faces are also displayed on the graves of the deceased.
Information
late 19th–early 20th century
Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
purchased by Perry E.H. Smith in Zaire (present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) between 1971 and circa 1975
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"Selected checklist of objects in the collection of African art," <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 58, no. 1/2 (1999): p. 77–83., p. 80
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<em>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection</em> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 297 (illus.)
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<em>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </em>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 349
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