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Helmet mask
Vitu (Witu) Island
late 19th century
Object Place: Papua New Guinea
Medium/Technique
Coconut fiber, wood, pigment, feathers
Dimensions
Overall: 54.6 cm (21 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of William E. Teel
Accession Number2014.321
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAfrica and Oceania
ClassificationsMasks
ProvenanceBetween about 1882 and 1893, acquired on the Witu Islands by Richard Parkinson (b. 1844 - d. 1909) [see note]; 1893, given by Parkinson to the Königlich Zoologisches, Anthropologisch-Ethnographisches Museum, later the Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden (inventory no. 8044); 1974, exchanged by the Museum für Völkerkunde with Everett Rassiga (dealer; b. 1922 - d. 2003), Bern. 1983, private collection, New York; December 2, 1983, anonymous (“New York private collector”) sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, lot 29, to Wayne Heathcote (dealer), New York; sold by Heathcote to William and Bertha Teel, Marblehead, MA; 2014, bequest of William Teel to the MFA. (Accession Date: February 26, 2014)
NOTE:
Richard Parkinson was an ethnographer and planter who traveled to Samoa in 1876 as a representative of the Hamburg trading firm J. C. Godeffroy and Sohn. He moved to the Bismarck Archipelago in 1882 and, beginning in 1890, worked for the German New Guinea Company as a collector and surveyor. He acquired and sold local artifacts to museums in Europe and the United States. It is not known exactly when or how he acquired this mask, but he recorded being shown Witu masks, which had been used during festivities and were kept in a hollow tree. See Jim Specht, "Traders and Collectors: Richard Parkinson and Family in the Bismarck Archipelago, P.N.G.," Pacific Arts 21/22 (2000): 23-38 and Christraud M. Geary, ed., From the South Seas: Oceanic Art in the Teel Collection (Boston: MFA, 2006), 21-24.
NOTE:
Richard Parkinson was an ethnographer and planter who traveled to Samoa in 1876 as a representative of the Hamburg trading firm J. C. Godeffroy and Sohn. He moved to the Bismarck Archipelago in 1882 and, beginning in 1890, worked for the German New Guinea Company as a collector and surveyor. He acquired and sold local artifacts to museums in Europe and the United States. It is not known exactly when or how he acquired this mask, but he recorded being shown Witu masks, which had been used during festivities and were kept in a hollow tree. See Jim Specht, "Traders and Collectors: Richard Parkinson and Family in the Bismarck Archipelago, P.N.G.," Pacific Arts 21/22 (2000): 23-38 and Christraud M. Geary, ed., From the South Seas: Oceanic Art in the Teel Collection (Boston: MFA, 2006), 21-24.