African Terracotta Bead Necklace Group

Carved wooden 'Four Faces Forest Spirit Mask' from Gabon, displaying flat surfaces with whitened heart-shaped faces each with a triangular nose, coffee-bean eyes and small or non-existent mouth; the two large carved horns represent the antelope. 1.2 kg, 50 cm



From Gabon, West Africa. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

The faces are usually painted in white kaolin earth, a pigment associated by the Kwele with light and clarity, the two essential factors in the fight against evil. The Kwele occupy a great forest region on the borders of Gabon, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo.

A large carved mask with a white heart-shaped face and a decoration to the forehead. 764 grams, 43 cm



From Cameroon, Central Africa. From the collection of the late Professor R M Hicks, OBE. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

The Fang used masks in their secret societies. Fang masks, such as those worn by itinerant troubadours and for hunting and punishing sorcerers, are painted white with facial features outlined in black. Typical are large, elongated masks and featuring a face that was usually heart-shaped with a long, fine nose. Apparently, it has been linked with the dead and ancestors, since white is their color. The ngontang dance society also used white masks, sometimes in the form of a four-sided helmet-mask with bulging forehead and eyebrows in heart-shaped arcs.

Carved in the round standing male figures with tall hatched headdress extending to the rear, hands placed either side of his distended abdomen, knees flexed, standing on a plano-convex base. 1.1 kg, 48.5 cm



From South West Nigeria, West Africa. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

The Yoruba are the largest nation in Africa with an art-producing tradition. Their figures, more often of Shango (also spelled Sango and Sagoe), deity of thunder and lightning are carved from wood and kept in shrines.