Lot 178
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Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Nayarit, Protoclassic Period, ca. 100 BCE to 250 CE. A hollow-built and highly burnished redware pottery female figure of sizable form who kneels in a classic birthing pose. The woman presents with a distended abdomen above bent legs while holding both arms under her breasts, and dark negative resist motifs with linear and spotted motifs cover her face and upper body. Her head peers forward with impressed ovoid eyes and features pursed lips, a ring-adorned septum, tab-shaped ears with trios of attached ornaments, and an incised coiffure surrounding a vent hole on top. Size: 8.625" W x 16.8" H (21.9 cm x 42.7 cm)
Ceramic figures like this one are the only remains that we have today of a sophisticated and unique culture in West Mexico. They made no above-ground monuments or sculptures, at least that we know of, which is in strong contrast to developments elsewhere in ancient Mesoamerica. Instead, their tombs were their lasting works of art: skeletons arrayed radially with their feet positioned inward, and clay offerings, like this one, placed alongside the walls facing inward, near the skulls. A large effigy like this one would most likely have flanked the entrance to a tomb in a way that archaeologists have interpreted as guarding. Some scholars have connected these dynamic sculptures of the living as a strong contrast to the skeletal remains whose space they shared, as if they mediated between the living and the dead.
Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-Arte Primitivo, New York, New York, USA; ex-Dr. James Tait Goodrich collection, Grandview-on-Hudson, New York, USA, by descent in the 1990s
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#173887
- Condition: Professional repair and restoration, with resurfacing and overpainting along new material and break lines. Abrasions and fading to original pigment, with softening to some finer details, and light earthen deposits in scattered areas. Nice preservation to negative resist motifs.
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