Lot 87C
Pre-Columbian, Gulf Coast Mexico, Veracruz, Remojadas, ca. 550 to 950 CE. A fantastic example of a mold-made terracotta sonriente (or smiling face), the most well-known of Remojadas figures, with wonderful red-painted, incised, and applied details. The figure features a traditional smiling mouth with revealed teeth below almond-shaped eyes and a petite nose, all situated on a quasi-triangular face. The wide body boasts a bichrome vest, with raised and outstretched arms, one of which is holding a conical rattle, and with attenuated legs. This is a male sonriente with delineated genitalia, round earspools, a stylized bead necklace, and red-pigmented arms and legs. The headdress is grand and adorned with two tendril-form bands, a central crest, and a perforation on either tip in relief against a red ground. Size: 9.75" H (24.8 cm); 10.5" H (26.7 cm) on included custom stand.
Sonrientes are rare in Mesoamerican art and scholars suggest that they played a special role in Remojadas society due to their rarity. Why that smile? Well some scholars believe that it was hallucinogenically produced perhaps by ingesting alcoholic pulque, while others including Miller and Taube suggest that the smiling figures were actually performers. (See Miller and Taube, "The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya." London: Thames and Hudson, 1993, p. 10.).
Provenance: private Healy collection, Studio City, California, USA, acquired over the last twenty years
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#129797
- Condition: Both arms and one leg reattached with small chips and light adhesive residue along break lines. Age-commensurate surface wear, small nicks and chips to headdress, arms, and legs, fading and losses to pigmentation and to incised designs. Nice earthen and mineral deposits.
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