Lot 162 D α

A very close example to this rare mask, possibly by the same hand, was collected circa 1904, and was sold at Sotheby’s, London, 13 December 1977, lot 327. An Aitape maternity figure in a similar style was collected in 1909 by Father Franz Kirschbaum, a missionary of the Catholic Order from the Society of the Divine Word, who stayed in German New Guinea from 1907 until his death in 1939. It is today part of the Vatican collection (no. 109841). Another mask is published in Höltker, G., Anthropos, Neue materielien über der todenzauber in Neuguinea, 1963, pp.348-355.