THE MAGAZINE AUCTION RESULTS €198,272 Hopi, Arizona, c. 1880. Aangwusnasomtaqa or Tumas Crow Mother helmet mask, leather, crow's wings, wood, feathers from the Amazon, eagle down.
€30,000 Charles Ratton pedigree At Drouot on 25 March, the Amerindian arts were represented in two collections, with kachinas previously belonging to Yves Berger and helmet masks and Hopi objects from M. H. As we know, Yves Berger, the literary director of the French publisher Grasset from 1960 to 2000 and himself a writer, was fascinated by the Indian peoples. His collection was dispersed by Drouot on 15 April 2002, two years before his death. In the fifteen lots sold, the kachinas totalled €145,110 (Eve) with the top price, €30,000 (double its estimate), going to a sip-ikne zuni from before 1930 with a base by Inagaki accompanied by a Charles Ratton pedigree (the latter explaining the former).Worth noting: from 25 June to 22 September this year, this expert, dealer and collector will be featured in an exhibition at the Musée du quai Branly entitled "L’invention des arts primitifs" ("The Invention of the tribal arts"). €935,596 Controversial AUCTION RESULTS THE MAGAZINE sale is a success The suspense concerning the staging of this Paris sale on 12 April continued right up to the last minute. The sacred character of the 70 Hopi masks on offer provoked a wave of protests in the US, firstly from their original tribe, who applied to an interim relief judge via an NGO, Survival International, to prevent their dispersion. But in vain. The collection went on to garner a resounding success, as the 62 masks sold raised a total of €935,596 (Néret-Mi<strong>net</strong> - Tessier & Sarrou). The mask in the photo received the lion's share. Estimated at no more than €50,000, it shot up to €198,272: one of the highest prices ever fetched by a Hopi mask. This Mother Crow mask from the first mesa, c. 1880, embodies the mother of the Hu, or Whipper Kachinas. She is also called the Bride Crow during the third mesa. €43,990 went to a half-helmet leather Chakwaina mask of c. 1870-1880, with a chin-piece, and topped with abundant hair made of lambskin, ornamented with eagle and pheasant feathers. This terrifying "He-who-screams" represents the ancestor of the Asa tribe, "Estebanico the Moor", who arrived in 1539, just before the conquest of New Mexico by Francisco Vaquez de Coronado. Sylvain Alliod N° 25 I GAZETTE DROUOT INTERNATIONAL 87