An African carved wooden mask, Lwalwa, Congo, early 20th C.

H.: 49,5 cm (incl. stand)

Provenance:
- The Charles Ratton collection
- Sold at L'étude de Provence, maîtres Ribière, Tuloup-Pascal et Leclère, 24/04/2004, Lot 47

Charles Ratton (Mâcon, France, 1895- Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, 1986)
A close friend of many avant-garde artists, like André Breton, Joan Miró and Man Ray, Ratton emerged as one of the world's leading art dealers, both in African and American ethnic art as well as surrealist works of art by Picasso and contemporaries. He curated the 1935 exposition "African Negro Art" in the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMa).

In 2013, the French Musée du quai Branly organised an exposition titled: "Charles Ratton, l'invention des Arts Primitifs".