A beautiful classic white mask with its long raffia beard. Among the "white masks" whose styles range from the Atlantic coast (from Libreville to Pointe Noire) to the eastern confines of Haut-Ogooué, those of the Vuvi - a Bantu people isolated in the mountainous region of the Chaillu massif - have long remained little-known. In her article devoted to the "Vuvi and their masks" (Tribal Art, 2013), which shed light for the first time on this culture and the narrow corpus of masks associated with it, Charlotte Grand-Dufay chose this mask in particular to illustrate the archetype. While their abstract style closely resembles the white masks of the Fang and Tsogho peoples, whose cultural universe the Vuvi share, they are characterized by "their 'almost flat' shield-shaped, rectangular or oval face, with the facial features concentrated in the upper part. They represent mythical-legendary entities, such as the white mask representing the moon, and belong to the initiatory societies of Bwete Disumba and Mureli. See : Les forêts natales - Arts de l'Afrique équatoriale atlantique (2017, p. 324) for a closely related mask from the former Alberto Magnelli collection in the collections of the Musée national d'art moderne in Paris. Vuvi, Gabon Wood, ochre pigment and significant kaolin remnants, nails, woven plant fiber fabric, braided raffia cord and beard, beautiful old oxidation of the wood, beautiful patina of use. H. 33 cm (and 72 cm with beard) Provenance : Private collection, Laon Abla and Alain Lecomte, Paris, acquired ca. 1990 Collection Jean-Claude and Christine L'Herbette, Paris Publications and exhibitions : Grand Dufay, "Les Vuvi et leurs masques", Tribal Art, n° 67, Spring 2013, p. 99, n° 12 Sotheby's, Paris, December 12, 2018, n° 140