Antique/Vintage Rare Subali Ramayana Monkey Mask, Indonesia, Bali (1317)

Description

The Indian epic 5th century BCE poem the Ramayana has been traditionally performed in dance dramas in India, Bali, Java, Thailand, and Cambodia. An early building block in India’s culture and literature, it presents valuable societal and cultural lessons on morality, relationships, sacrifice and forgiveness. The Ramayana is the story of Rama, an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu and a symbol of virtue who lived in exile due to a scheming stepmother. It centers on his devoted and virtuous wife Sita who is abducted by Ravana the king of Lanka and his devoted efforts to rescue her.

The epic poem includes the clash between twin simian brothers – Subali (aka Bali or Vali), the cruel powerful Monkey King of Kishkindha and his younger brother Sugriva. After a bitter dispute, Subali banished his twin from the kingdom and took Sugriva’s wife as his wife. Rama and Sugriva formed a pact in which Rama agreed to help Sugriva defeat Subali, and in return, Sugriva and his monkey army would help Rama rescue his wife. Subali and Sugriva’s historical dispute ends with Rama killing Subali with an arrow that was justified as punishment for Subali’s moral transgressions against his brother. Rama restored justice for Sugriva, who sent his monkey army to join Rama to defeat Ravana and finally be united with Sita.

This masterfully carved authentic antique mask has distinct exaggerated simian characteristics made masterfully carved authentic antique mask has distinct exaggerated simian characteristics made to present Subali’s in dance performances darkened from the mask’s contact with sweat and skin during performances. The  mask’s back shows it was carved using traditional carving tools. Although this mask does not have a crown, it was sold as being the Monkey King Subali. This also means this mask could also have been used as a Topeng Bojog (Monkey Mask) for the many other monkey characters in other dance dramas performed in Bali.

Authentic, vintage extremely powerful masks are rare. They have been replaced by mass produced tourist carvings which have no soul.

AI Content Summary

This mask is high-tier, authentic regional very collectible folk-art for the following reasons:

It is a genuine piece of material culture used in indigenous performative storytelling. It has highly defined inner operational features (ventilation, eye splits), traditional layered pigments, and chisel tooling marks on the backside which confirms it was produced as a practical piece of theater or regional village art. Animal characters from the classical Balinese theatrical traditions are incredibly popular among collectors because they carry both high decorative value and deep ritual significance. Monkey masks with original polychrome pigments from the pre-war era are increasingly hard to find.