Dance Mask

This mask likely represents a guillemot, an attribution made by Edward William Nelson on a similar mask observed on the Lower Yukon, Alaska, 1877-1881 (Bureau of American Ethnology, eighteenth annual Report, 1896-97)

PROVENANCE   

Reportedly collected by Myrtle Ebright, a schoolteacher at Norton Sound, Alaska, 1893-1897, then donated in the early1920's
Willis Carey Historical Museum, Cashmere, Washington, deaccessioned 1981/82
John Hewitt, London, United Kingdom
George Terasaki, New York, NY
Chester Dentan, Seattle, WA
Merton Simpson, New York, NY
Donald Morris Gallery, New York, NY
Maurice Cohen, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Donald Ellis Gallery, Dundas, ON
Private collection, New York, NY

Published

Donald Ellis Gallery catalogue, 1998, pg. 4

RELATED EXAMPLES     

National Museum of Natural History, Washington Cat. No. 33107 See - Fitzhugh, William and Kaplan, Susan. Inua: Spirit World of the Bering Sea Eskimo. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, pg. 109, pl. 106.

The Eskimo About the Bering Strait, Nelson, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1983, pg. 409, pl. C-2, C-4, pg. 411, pls. CI-1 and CI-2