This mask is made from brown wood with white-painted lips, eyelids and forehead marking, tipped with a white crest.

It was purchased from the carver by John Danford (most likely as a tourist piece) in 1948 and is not a mask used for ritual purposes. It is one of two similar masks in the Collection, the other being BIRRC-D0006.

Notes:  John Danford spent the majority of his professional life working for the British Council in West Africa. He spent 11 years as the representative in Ibadan, Nigeria, his arts education providing him with the insight to encourage and develop the arts in Nigeria. For his achievements in this area he was awarded an OBE in 1953. He occupied three further posts in Trinidad, Manchester and Sierra Leone before illness forced him into retirement. In 1964 a large portion of his West African arts collection was loaned to the University of Birmingham before being purchased in 1975, forming the nucleus of the Danford Collection of West African Art and Artefacts.

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