Raimundo de Madrazo, (Spanish, - Tlingit (Indigenous Alaskan) Mask - late 19th century - T-Shirt

This watercolour study renders a carved Tlingit mask, seen frontally and slightly from below, with its toothed grin and rounded crown filling the sheet.

Visual Elements & Composition

Turquoise and pale blue dominate the rounded, helmet-like crown, crossed by a band of olive-brown. Heavy mauve brows sweep over almond-shaped eyes, each with a dark round pupil, while a ring-shaped nostril and a small mauve ear sit at the sides. The lower face is anchored by a broad golden-ochre mouth, its open jaw lined with a row of pale, evenly spaced teeth. A band of mauve and ochre along the bottom edge carries small incised motifs. The painting sits on grey-tinted paper, with a handwritten Spanish note at the upper right and a number at the upper left.

Meaning & Symbolism

The mask belongs to the Northwest Coast carving tradition, identified as Tlingit work of the late nineteenth century. Masks like this were worn in ceremonial performance, where exaggerated features, the toothed grin and bright paint carried the presence of a clan crest or ancestral being. The colours and motifs were never decoration alone: they identified the owner's lineage and the character represented. The study is catalogued under Raimundo de Madrazo, a nineteenth-century Spanish painter whose thin transparent washes and touches of body colour take a documentary approach to the object.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A study built for close inspection gains presence on a tee, where the grin and crown sit across the chest and shift with every movement of the wearer. The mask's frontal gaze centres on the shirt, so the turquoise crown, mauve brows and ochre mouth read as one face rather than scattered colour. The animated, theatrical expression that the original carving was made to hold carries straight onto the garment.