Object Notes

Numerous masks representing the people, animals, and things in the Dogon world since the Creation appear at dama, a six-day commemorative funerary masquerade held every several years for important male elders.

This tall female figure with short legs and feet sunk into a heavy cylindrical base is adorned with incised symbolic marks on her chest. Clusters of snail shells, cowrie shells, and red abrus seeds originally adorned her coiffure, upper arms, and abdome

The monumental Wittgenstein Vitrine, or display cabinet, is the largest and most lavish known example of the silverwork of the Wiener Werkstätte.

Claude-Joseph Vernet made his reputation with Mediterranean port scenes, and mountain landscapes such as this are rare in his oeuvre. This one was intended to serve as the companion to an equally grand port scene, now in a private collection.