Frederick Loeser Fund

Frank L. Babbott Fund

Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos

Eskimo whale bone face mask, porous black with white plug. Curved pierced slit eyes with curved eyebrows formed by broad raised lines. Rounded protruding cheek bones, centrally placed bulbous nose with flattened rectangular bridge and upraised tip, round holes piercing nostrils. Large downward-facing crescent pierced with slit for mouth; outlined with raised lines suggesting lips. Whitish plug (bone?) protrudes slightly from hole in bone at left corner of mouth.

A. Augustus Healy Fund

Museum Collection Fund

The Adolph and Esther D. Gottlieb Collection

Size: adult; probable wearer: male. The plain weave dark blue field has a horizontal camelid fiber warp and weft. Camelid fiber embroidery in red, dark blue, yellow and green is used for the designs. The lack of any indication of borders suggests that this textile may have been used as a headdress. The abstract design represents a smaller cat in outline, which is nested within a larger elongated cat figure; the cat tails end in a distinctive triangular shape. Filler figures are small cats. Several pieces in the collection have the same feline figure on the borders (34.1555 and 34.1591). A variant of this back-to-back feline figure occurs on a mantle in the collection (34.1584), where it repeats in paired bands; however the tail terminates in the complete body of a small cat, rather than in a triangular shape. A looped headband (34.1596) also has a design which represents a similar feline figure.

Alfred W. Jenkins Fund