Brag mask

This beautiful mask has the curved, trunk-shaped nose that is one of the most important features of Murik Lake art. Ulli Beier and Peter ^Aris1 note that locals “see these prominent noses as identifying spirits. They clearly distinguish between sculptures with a human nose and those with a spirit nose” like our mask. And they ^add2 that “all important masks bear the spider motif. The spider is the perfect creator. The fine, precise lines of its web and the complexity of the design it produces symbolize the kind of perfection that the sculptor himself aims for”. These motifs, known as mabranarogo, appear here in the upper and lower registers of the mask. Harry A. Franklin’s interest in collecting began in 1938 while working as an executive for a clothing company. In 1955, eager to pursue his passion for art and embark on a more adventurous career, he opened his first gallery on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. The Franklin Gallery quickly became a meeting place for adventurers, academics, museum curators and Hollywood personalities. Franklin was renowned for his sharp eye. Equally at home with anthropologists and movie stars, his clients included Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Edwards G. Robinson, John Huston, Vincent Price, Franklin Murphy and numerous collectors across the U.S. and Europe. He developed relationships with the European dealers of his day. He purchased objects from former German museum collections through intermediaries such as Arthur Speyer and Ludwig Bretschneider, and from Parisian dealers such as Charles Ratton. He financed expeditions to New Guinea, sponsoring scientists in exchange for works of art they were able to procure. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, very old objects could still be found in their original context. He also bought from auctions. He bought, among others, a dozen objects (including the statue known as Queen Bangwa) at the legendary sale of Helena Rubinstein’s estate in 1966. Of these purchases, he kept the finest objects for his personal collection. His daughter Valérie assisted him in the gallery from 1971 until her father’s death in 1983, when she took over as director of the family gallery until 1989. Throughout her career, museums and private collectors regularly called on her expertise as an art consultant. In 1990, Valérie signed a contract with Sotheby’s New York to offer the Franklin collection of African art. The highlight of this memorable sale was the Bangwa Queen, which achieved a record seven-figure result ($3.4 million). It was the most important sale of primitive art ever made at the time. Its success reinforced her philanthropy in the art world and, in 2017, she donated a large part of the extraordinary Oceanic art collection to the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Timothy Rub, director of the museum, said of the donation: “One of the finest and most comprehensive private collections of Melanesian art, numbering over 1,200 objects…. Thanks to this donation, Hood’s Museum of Art’s holdings in this field are among the most important to be found in any public museum in the country, and constitute an important resource for exhibitions, teaching and research.” Other recipients of Valerie’s gifts included: the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, the Denver Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the De Young Memorial Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art. She had also loaned pieces from her collection to the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Center for African Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. In May 2019, part of the family’s collection of Melanesian and other Pacific art was auctioned at Sotheby’s New York. She kept a small number of the objects that were closest to her heart. After her death, and in accordance with her wishes, the rest of the family’s collection of African and Oceanic art was auctioned off, as was the mask presented here, with the proceeds going to the Hood Museum. Notes: 1- Beier Aris. 1975, n° 2, p.21 2- ibid. p.17 Price: €25,000