**Originally Listed At $4500**

Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Jalisco, Ameca Grey type, Protoclassic Period, ca. 100 BCE to 250 CE. A fabulous hollow-bodied pottery statue depicting a kneeling female holding an infant in her hands. She sits with a skirt covering the tops of her folded knees. Her nude torso bears hemispherical breasts beneath raised shoulders as she holds the baby just below her left breast, appearing to be in the process of nursing the child. Her elongated head exhibits a wide-eyed countenance with a sharply crested aquiline nose, incised 'teeth' within parted lips. The infant also exhibits the long, typical Jalisco style head famous from this region. Size: 10" W x 16.5" H (25.4 cm x 41.9 cm)

Clay figures like this example are the only remains that we have today of this 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 these, placed alongside the walls facing inward, near the skulls. Large effigy figures like this would most likely have flanked the entrance to a tomb in a way that archaeologists have interpreted as guarding. Some scholars have posited that these dynamic sculptures of the living provided a strong contrast to the skeletal remains whose space they shared, and have suggested that they mediated between the living and the dead.

Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-private T. Misenhimer collection, Beverly Hills, California, USA, collected from 1970 to 2008

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#161415

Repaired from perhaps 10 to 15 pieces with restoration over the breaks and minor resurfacing.