Mask Ensemble of a Kuosi Society Member. Bamileke culture Cameroon. Fabric, monkey fur, glass beads, feathers, reeds, string, horsetail, ivory . Approx 182.88 cm. Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund 99.41.1-6a-t. Staff Photographers: Travis Fullerton, Chief Collection Photographer; David Stover, Assistant Photographer. Additional Photographers: Denise Lewis, Willie Redd, Jon-Phillip Sheridan, Jay Paul. © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Let’s see other eye (or ear) things:
Africa | Elephant Mask from the Bamiléké people of Cameroon | Postcard; publisher Hoa-Qui n° 3720 BT3. Via delcampe.net.
Bamileke. Kuosi Society Elephant Mask, 20th century. Cloth, beads, raffia, fiber, 57 3/4 x 20 1/2 x 11 1/2 in. (146.7 x 52.1 x 29.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased with funds given by Mr. and Mrs. Milton F. Rosenthal, 81.170. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum. Elephant mask composed of cloth to which various colored beads have been sewn, and wearing its own complimentary hat. The cloth foundation is primarily deep navy blue. The mask form is composed of a hood-like head/face with round eyes outlined in red cloth and white beads, a nose of red cloth to which are sewn pale blue beads, and an oval shaped red cloth mouth outlined in white beads. The rest of the face has white, deep yellow, and varying shades of blue beads, as well as cowrie shell decoration. The square shaped hat attached to the back of the hood is decorated with blue and white beads. The mask has large disk shaped ears with white, blue and deep yellow beads. Two long rectangular panels (representing the elephants trunk) extend down the head; there is one panel in front and one hangs in the back. The inside lining of the panels is woven raffia fiber cloth. The panels have white, blue, ochre, and red beads. The bead design is geometric and relies primarily on a basic isisceles triangle pattern and its variants, for example, triangle radiates outward from a circle, or are arranged in an hour-glass like design. ACCESSION NUMBER 81.170
CREDIT LINE Purchased with funds given by Mr. and Mrs. Milton F. Rosenthal
CC-BY-SA.
Eye figurines from the Eye Temple in Tell Brak. PD by Helvetiker via Wikimedia Commons. Original caption reads: Schaffhausen, Museum zu Allerheiligen, Sammlung Ebnöther, (Abteilung "Idole") Zwei Augenidole, links: Kalkstein (Höhe 19,3 cm), rechts: Alabaster (Höhe: 4,6 cm), aus Syrien, 2. Hälfte des 4. Jahrtausend vor Christus; genaue Provenienz nicht angegeben; solche Idole wurden lt. Katalog gefunden in Tepe Gaura und im Augentempel von Tell Brak (Katalog 1999, S. 22).
Eye idol from Tell Brak, ca. 3700–3500 B.C., Gypsum alabaster, Metropolitan Museum of Art via Archive.org. 1937-38, excavated by Max Mallowan, on behalf of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, ceded in the division of finds to the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, acquired by the Museum in 1951, gift of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Accession_number 51.59.1
Malagan display mask, Northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, probably 19th century. Collection of Valerie Franklin. Via Hali.
Indus Valley Terracotta Figurine of a Fertility...
Eye Figurines from Tell Brak, Syria, 4th millennium BC. Via eternalsymbols.com.
These figurines were excavated in the 30s of the former century, at Tell Brak, now North-East Syria, it used to be the ancient city of Nagar. Once, a temple was situated at the site and it appears that these “eye idols” were given as offerings, as thousands of them have been found. Hence the temple is called “the Eye Temple”.
Sumerian Large Terracotta Eye Idol. 4th Millennium BC. H. 7 1/2 in. (19 cm.). Ex German private collection. © royalathena.com.
Published: J. Eisenberg, Art of the Ancient World, 2006, no. 220 (amazon).
Fig. 73. Lightning Brothers, Ingaladdi, Victoria River, Wardaman country of the Northern Territory (15° S, 130° E). New dating techniques of this red inorganic-pigmented pictograph image were done using a plasma-chemical extraction method.
