Pre-Columbian, Peru, Chancay culture, ca. 1200 to 1400 CE. This is an incredible wooden mummy mask with intact woven feather and textile headband -- intact feathers, especially at this stage of preservation, are an extreme rarity! The face is painted red, with white and black diamond-shaped eyes, a tiny mouth, and a protruding nose. The headband has a geometric pattern. A head like this one would have capped a mummy bundle. Very similar items to these were found near the coast, at Pachamacac, by Max Uhle in 1896, which are now held by the Pennsylvania University Museum. They were false heads placed atop the funereal bundles of, in the case of that find, mummified children. In these bundles were jumbled skeletons; much of the mummification in this region is caused naturally by the environmental conditions. Size 12 inches (30.5cm) H. + custom mount.

Provenance: Ex- New York Gallery, Ex NYC collection of Thomas M. Messer, former director of the Guggenheim Museum. London Collection of Peter Sloane.
Apr 2007.

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#113489

Slight crack to wood of lower face and wear to textile, otherwise in excellent condition, especially the feathers!