A rare and ancient Kipong mask from the Malangan tradition of New Ireland, one of the most spectacular and complex expressions of Oceanic art. Rare, powerful and deeply symbolic, these masks embody the prestige, memory and spirituality of the island's northern clans. The appearance of a large Kipong mask of such quality is a real event, as these once ephemeral works were mostly destroyed after the ceremonies for which they were intended. In the Malangan tradition, each mask is designed for a specific ritual - commemorative, funerary or initiatory - where it serves to lift taboos weighing on the village after a death, to re-establish the balance between the living and the dead, or to announce the next great ceremony. The object, activated by the words and gestures of the ritual specialist, becomes a medium between the visible and invisible, an embodied image of the clan's vital forces. This Kipong is impressive for its red, white and black polychromy, its powerful, angular features and the density of its sculpted and painted composition. The face, topped by a headdress with two high vertical feathers adorned with the painted kapkap motif, is strikingly expressive: deeply carved eyes, a mouth open to blackened teeth, a prominent nose in keeping with the aesthetics of the corpus, and a beard in carved, openwork and painted wood, forming an elegant foliate pattern punctuated with red and white pigments (probably a diet of betel nuts offered during rites). The red fabric and dark fibers representing the hair add to the theatricality of the whole. The monumentality of the mask and the complexity of its volumes suggest that it was not worn during long dances, but rather presented statically at crucial moments in the ritual, as an "active" mask charged with a precise function: to purify, protect, or summon the ancestors. With its formal balance, rigorous symmetry and vibrant painted decoration, this mask is directly related to the historic example in the André Breton collection (Calmels-Cohen sale, 2003, no. 6127), the emblematic masterpiece of the Kipong mask corpus. New Ireland, Bismarck Archipelago Wood (alstonia), shells (turbo pétholatus), fabric, vegetable fibers, pigments, slight chips from age, small old xylophagous cracks, rich and beautiful polychromy, beautiful old ritual patina. On the reverse, two old inventory numbers: "K.232" in black ink and "2636 :05" in red ink. H. 85 cm Provenance: Collected between 1893 and 1895 by Alexander Kukic (K. 232) Probably Weltmuseum, Vienna, Sold by the museum in 1970 to Maurice Bonnefoy, Geneva Ader Picard Tajan, October 16, 1989, no. 33 Private collection, Paris, acquired at this sale Publications and exhibitions: Gabus et Bühler, Art océanien, 1970, n° 1174, p. 88, Neuchâtel, Musée d'Ethnographie, June 27 - December 31, 1970