Finger Mask
Lower Yukon River, Alaska
ca. 1880
wood, caribou hair, feathers, paint
height: 11 ¾"
width: 12 ¼"
Inventory # E4275
Sold
Exhibited
Innuit Gallery of Eskimo Art, Toronto, ON, “Early Art and Artifacts of the Eskimo”, June 14 to June 28, 1980
Published
Early Art and Artifacts of the Eskimo IV, cat. 71, Innuit Gallery of Eskimo Art, Toronto, ON, 1980
Related Examples
Sheldon Jackson Museum, Cat. No. IIB161a,b – See: Collins, Henry B. De Laguna, Frederica. Carpenter, Edmund. Stone, Peter. The Far North: 2000 Years of Eskimo and Indian Art. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1973, pg. 138, pl, 182, for a very similar pair of abstract finger masks collected at Anvik by the Reverend Sheldon Jackson ca. 1893
Sheldon Jackson Museum, Cat. No. II.F.2 – See: Fienup-Riordan, Ann. The Living Tradition of Yup'ik Masks. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996, pg. 114 (lower) for another pair of abstract finger masks collected by Sheldon Jackson at Andreafsky in 1893
Sheldon Jackson Museum, Cat. No. IIH45 and Cat. No. IIB48 – See: Ibid, pg. 165 for a pair of finger masks displaying a strikingly similar “circle-dot” motif, caribou hair and jaeger feathers and page 169 for another pair of abstract finger masks with “circle-dot” motif collected at Andreafsky, also decorated with caribou fur and jaeger feathers.