Mask

This is described as a Sherdukpen mask. It’s in the form of a monkey. It appears to be very well carved and finished with a black ask covering. The mask is strikingly rectangular in shape with a wide nose and mouth. This character would feature in Tibetan Opera performances and certainly linked with Hindu-Buddhist tales concerned with the arrival of Buddhism from India.
The fact that the mask is so well carved raises the first concern. The Monpa-Sherdukpen mask is very different in carving style; many masks from these communities are much more roughly carved. Masks from these communities which are carved to a high level of skill have a very different almost naturalistic quality and focus on facial striation.
This mask is more in keeping with Tibetan or Bhutanese masking traditions, but the black ash colouring is not typical. Furthermore, the masks show no sign of wear, no facial oils, no marks, which leads one to wonder if they were made for sale to tourists. Indian and Kashmiri carvers make masks as ‘curios’ for tourists and the quality in these masks is much better than a tourist mask there is something not quite right. There possibly could be a connection to one of the Himalayan communities in the Nepalese borderlands.