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FIG. 6 (left):
Mask.
Kata or Kambulu,
DR Congo.
Wood, pigment. H: 34.9 cm.
Ex Henri Kerels, Brussels (by 1937);
Paul and Luisa Muller Vanisterbeek,
Brussels; Jef Vanderstraete, Lasne,
Belgium; Jacques and Denise
Schwob, Brussels; Merton Simpson,
New York (by 1985); Donald
Morris, Birmingham, Michigan,
and New York; Margaret Demant,
Birmingham, Michigan.
Private collection.
Photo: © Tim Thayer, courtesy
Donald Morris Gallery, New York.
Elder members of a regulatory
association called Mukanda
occasionally call upon the
intervention of the Cibwabwabwa
mask during a period when
childbirths are weak or when
hunting is repeatedly unsuccessful.
However, since the association
does not own the masks, they can
also perform at other times, such
as during funerals or for mere
entertainment.
FIG. 7 (below):
Sketch by Frans M.
Olbrechts of the ex-Kerels
Kata/Kambulu mask.
MAS | Museum aan de Stroom,
Antwerp.
© Collectiebeleid Musea en Erfgoed,
Antwerp.
ular masquerades continue to contribute to the
well-being of the community and the building of
group solidarity. Peres’ mask is of a type named
Pumbu, one of many genres that once constituted
the broad category of dance masks—sometimes
referred to as village masks—that are generically
called mbuya. The identifi cation of a particular
persona within the mbuya category often relies
more on the choreography and details of the costume,
headdress, and accessories than on the formal
features of the carved mask itself.
While preparing for my exhibition in 2001, I
discovered among the Olbrechts sketches documentation
of a mask that is now in a private
collection in the United States (fi gs. 6 and 7). At
the time of the Antwerp exhibition in the 1930s,
it was owned by the Belgian artist and collector
Henri Kerels (1896–1956), who was primarily
known for his African-themed artworks painted
from life (fi g. 8). Kerels had acquired the mask
along with several other sculptures during his extended
visit to the Congo in 1930–31. The mask
is a rare example of a genre that until recently
has been erroneously identifi ed as Mbagaani or
“Babindji” (Bindji).3 Based on Rik Ceyssens’ extensive
fi eld research in the region, we know that
these masks, called Cibwabwabwa, are the work
of artists among the Kata—who are also known
as Kata-Kangandu—or Bana Kambulu (Ceyssens
2016: 150). Aside from the Cibwabwabwa
mask, which is the chief of masks, there are two
other characters in this tradition: his wife, Mushika,
and his female assistant, Kabamba. Male
masks are colored black and female ones red or
reddish. Cibwabwabwa masks refl ect the characteristic
hairstyle worn by young men in the
region, which is called mukokomo among the
Kata-Kangandu.
Private collections are not the only place I have
discovered works with an undetected Olbrechtsrelated
provenance that situates them in Antwerp
in the 1930s. A white kifwebe-type mask (fi gs. 9
and 10)—preserved intact with its thick beard of
long strands of raffi a—appears in Hans-Joachim
Koloss’ fi nal publication on the collection of
the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin before his
retirement (Koloss 1999: 171, pl. 163). I recognized
the object from Olbrechts’ sketches, at
which time it was in the possession of Gaston-
Denys Périer, who is remembered as author of
the European head of the department of African
and Oceanic Art at Christie’s in Paris, revealed an
interesting and related discovery on his popular
blog, where he has engaged in a useful discussion
on the subject of inscriptions in the past.
Apparently unbeknownst to either the sculpture’s
former owner or seller, a beautiful central Pende
male mask that Berlin-based collector Javier Peres
acquired from Didier Claes at the 2016 BRAFA
art fair in Brussels bore the inscribed proof that
it was included in Kongo-kunst (fi gs. 3 and 5). At
the time, the mask was in the collection of one
J. V. De Raadt in Ghent. Unlike the other works
reproduced in this essay, the sketch Olbrechts
likely created of this mask has apparently not
been preserved. However, given the characteristic
inscription on the mask and the reference to it in
the 1937 exhibition catalog as no. 92 (it is not
illustrated), there should be no doubt about the
sculpture’s inclusion in the Antwerp exhibition.
Though long organized for mere entertainment
of audiences both local and foreign, masquerades
among the Pende originally had an explicit religious
function, creating a place of communion
between the worlds of the living and of the dead.
The masks served as reminders of deceased family
members who were said to return to the village
to dance among their living descendants. In
contemporary Pende society, the seemingly sec-
INSCRIPTIONS