A RARE ACQUISITION Toledo, OH—A masterwork of Oceanic art has been added to the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art. Purchased at Christie’s in Paris on December 3, 2015, the mask is one of only four known examples from Saibai Island in the Torres Strait and has been heralded by scholars as the most notable. Saibai Island masks are among the rarest and most spectacular works of art created by the artists of the Torres Strait. Masks in this style are called mawa, meaning “face,” and are believed to represent mythical heroes whose appearances 62 signal important events and rites of passage. They were carved from wood and were likely worn on the top of the head by a dancer draped in a costume of coconut leaves. They may also have been used as an architectural ornamentation. Formerly in the Jolika Collection at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Toledo Art Museum acquired the mask for a record price in competitive bidding at public auction. The Toledo Museum of Art was founded in 1901 and remains a privately endowed nonprofi t institution. Its purchase of the Saibai mask was curious to some, since Toledo does not have an Oceanic collection of note. Instead it emphasizes the presentation of singular masterpieces, so this object will now reside in the company of the museum’s paintings and sculptures by top-tier names such as Bearden, Cézanne, Calder, Close, Cole, Degas, van Gogh, El Greco, Holbein, Kiefer, Matisse, Miró, Monet, Picasso, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Turner; master- LEFT: Mask, mawa. Saibai Island, Torres Strait, Northern Islands, Australia. C. 1870. Wood, human hair, shell, seedpod, fi ber, pigment, melo shell, coix seeds. Toledo Museum of Art, purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment; gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 2015. Photo courtesy of Christie’s. ABOVE: Vessel with supernatural profi le. Maya, Los Alacranes, Southeastern Lowlands, Mexico. AD 650–900. Post-fi re and slip-painted terracotta. H: 16.8 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, inv. M.2010.115.13, purchased with funds provided by Camilla Chandler Frost. REVEALING CREATION Los Angeles—A new long-term installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will examine ancient Maya ceramic production as both art and science, highlighting how artists of this important Mesoamerican culture worked to emulate acts of primordial creation through their labor of shaping, painting, and fi ring clay. Revealing Creation: The Science and Art of Ancient Maya Ceramics, which opens May 21, 2016, draws on collaborative research by LACMA’s Conservation Center and its Art of the Ancient Americas Program to integrate new insights gained from technical analysis of Maya ceramic vessels with academic knowledge from Maya culture. The new imaging produced by this research reveals vessel composition, pigment chemistry, and modern modifi cations. Select images will be juxtaposed with the actual objects in the gallery, inviting visitors to view inside these vessels as a way to come closer to the hands—and worlds—of the remarkable artists who created them. IN FINE FEATHER Cambridge, MA—Feathers, large and small, plain and colorful, have been used for millennia to enhance the beauty and power of clothing and other objects. Highlighting rare and beautiful pieces from Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology’s collection, a small but interesting exhibition explores the ways in which feathers have been used to signal or endow beauty, wealth, status, and spiritual well-being in cultures around the world. From a Peruvian mummy mask adorned with boldly colored feathers to delicate feather inlay jewelry, In Fine Feather: Selected Featherwork from Peabody Collections will feature unusual and rarely seen works of spiritual power and craftsmanship. It will be on view from April 13, 2016, until February 2017. RIGHT: Feathered face from a mummy bundle. Culture unspecifi ed, Peru. Pre contact. Ex Antonio Orlandini. Feathers, fi ber, metal. W: 23 cm. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, inv. 42- 28-30/5804 (digital fi le# 99320014). works from antiquity and Asia; fi ne decorative arts; and highlights from its renowned glass collection. All are presented as part of the museum’s mission, which is “to integrate art into the lives of people.”
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