**First Time At Auction**

Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Java or Bali, ca. first half of the 20th century CE. A hand-carved wooden festival mask depicting a character for the Topeng dance of Indonesia. The mask is painted with a pink ground atop which a series of black, white, and red details compose the eyes, brows, facial hair, and lips. The mask is capped with an exquisite crown bearing incised segmentation painted in a palette of vibrant colors. A large winged crest - likely a Kraton Palace mark - is carved into the verso of the forehead and is painted with bright red and gold pigments. Size: 6.375" W x 7.25" H (16.2 cm x 18.4 cm).

This is a Topeng mask which is worn during the dramatic dances enacted in Bali and to a lesser extent Java that depict traditional stories of kings, princes, heroes, and myths. In these dances, the entire story is performed by only four or five actors playing all the parts, both male and female. As a result, each actor will have around forty masks like this one that are only his; there is believed to be a special bond between actor and mask and that when he dons the mask, he enters a kind of trance, connected to the spiritual world. The Topeng dance originated in the 17th century, and the word "topeng" literally means mask in Indonesian.

Provenance: private Rochester, Michigan, USA collection

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#138042

Surface wear and abrasions commensurate with age and use, small nicks to nose, eyes, crown, and peripheries, with fading to some areas of pigmentation, and some chips to palace mark on verso. Light earthen deposits throughout.