Headdress for Gelede (Igi)

Description

The Yoruba masquerade festival called Gelede is a dazzling spectacle that honors the spiritual power of female elders, ancestors, and deities—known collectively as Our Mothers—entertaining them in order to benefit from their supernatural gifts. During the festivities, men dance in matched pairs of headdresses. Gelede headdresses often portray women. One of these depicts a woman wearing a head tie, while the other shows a woman with a plaited hairstyle. The male performers’ costumes would have also included ample breasts, hips, and buttocks and cloth wrappers borrowed from local women, presenting an exaggerated vision of femininity.

Provenance

Patrick Prevost, Paris, France. Dr. Emanuel Klein, New York, N.Y., sold, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, N.Y., May 26, 1978, African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian Art, sale 4130, lot no. 240, to Alain de Monbrison, Paris, France; sold to Richard and Barbara Faletti, Chicago, Ill., 1983 [personal communication from R. Faletti dated July 26, 2000, documented in curatorial file]; given to the Art Institute, 2000.

Headdress for Gelede (Igi)

Yoruba

Early/mid–20th century

Accession Number

155957

Medium

Wood, pigment, and kaolin

Dimensions

31.8 × 21 × 22.9 cm (12 1/2 × 8 1/4 × 9 in.)

Classification

masks

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Richard Faletti, the Faletti Family Collection