Pair of theatrical masks, Guizhou province, southwest China, 19th century.

Pair of theatrical masks, Guizhou province, southwest China, 19th century.
Wood, with traces of black, red and blue polychrome.
Handle on the back of the mask.
Provenance: Marie Crouvisier, Paris.
Measurements: 21 cm and 20,5 cm. height.

Pair of theatrical masks, originating from the province of Guizhou, in the mountainous southwest of China, probably linked to the Nuo theater, a living practice in ethnic communities such as the Dong, Miao, Buyi or Yao, where ancestral traditions survive with strong spiritual charge.

They present a zoomorphic morphology, with prominent foreheads decorated with circular reliefs or scales, bulging eyes and eyebrows sculpted in radial shapes. The mouths, prominent and highly expressive, are carved in a single block with the cheeks, accentuating their visual strength.

Guizhou, a region with rich ethnic and geographical diversity, is one of the last bastions of traditional Nuo theater, where these masks have an apotropaic function, that is, they protect the people during New Year festivals, purification or agricultural fertility ceremonies.

These masks were used in conjunction with costumes and codified dances, in which the performers, often local shamans or ritual specialists, embodied deities, heroes or demons in narratives that combined myth, history and local cosmology.

Paired masks such as these may represent tutelary twins, guardians or complementary actors in a dramatic ritual scene.