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Markell GallerySelected Objects
Mask (tatanua), artist unidentified, ca. 1800-1900, polychrome, wood, and natural fiber. Gift of Harold M. Sewall, 1898.73.
Artist unrecorded. Bird carving, nineteenth century, polychromed wood. New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Gift of Harold M. Sewall, 1898.75
Océanie: Îlots Uvea (Wallis): Pêche aux Palmes, 1845, etching, by Charles Meryon. Museum Purchase, Susan Dwight Bliss Fund, 1974.36
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At funeral ceremonies in the island New Ireland, part of Papua New Guinea, people performed wearing extraordinary masks. This exhibition explores the intersection of memory and ephemerality in such masks and cultural practices from New Ireland. It features nineteenth-century masks associated with these practices that Harold Sewall, U.S. Consul General to Samoa from Bath, Maine, donated to the Museum. The exhibition explores two lines of inquiry: the cultural significance and ephemeral qualities of masks associated with funerary ceremonies in New Irelandand the circulation of such objects beyond Oceania through collecting practices among Europeans and Americans.
Read the exhibition labels here.