Object 57 : 12

Notice

The goddess Mami Wata surrounded by snakes dominates this seri (seli) dance mask, presumed to be Guro but probably Baule. Collected along with it, the chromolithograph of a snake charmer is very similar in its iconography, confirming the correspondences established between local and immigrant registers in the visual arts of West Africa.

Chromolithograph from an original painted by Arnold Schleisinger in Hamburg between 1880 and 1887.
On the request of a dealer from Kumasi (Ghana), this copy was printed from the first edition, by the Shree Ram Calendar Company, in Bombay, in 1955-1956.
Papier
Acquired from the ethnologist Hans Himmelheber in 1967
MEG Inv. ETHAF 033696