Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Nayarit, ca. 300 BCE to 300 CE. A ceramic seated figure in excellent condition, hand-molded and painted with glossy red, yellow, and dark red slip. The face is incised, painted yellow, and very detailed, with coffee-bean style eyes, a large nose ring in the upturned nose, and a small mouth slightly open as if the figure is speaking. The figure wears multiple earrings on each ear and has a large, flattened head, perhaps suggesting an ideal form of beauty in a culture where people practiced skull shaping. The lower body has wide thighs and short arms; the darker red slip seems to give the figure shorts or some kind of leg coverings. Size: 6.75" W x 7.25" H (17.1 cm x 18.4 cm)

This style of sculpture is known as Chinesco by collectors because of its stylistic similarities to Chinese art. Clay 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. 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: Ex- Collection of the late Peter Arnovick, San Francisco, CA

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#121069

Intact, with amazing remaining pigment and small areas of manganese deposits.