Colima Redware Seated Shaman Vessel, ex Christie's

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Ancient / Ethnographic From Around the World

By Artemis Gallery

Jul 30, 2020

Set Reminder 2020-07-30 10:00:00 2020-07-30 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Ancient / Ethnographic From Around the World https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/ancient-ethnographic-from-around-the-world-5382
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• Lot Description
  Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Colima, Protoclassic Period, ca. 100 BCE to 250 CE. A wonderful example of a hand-built and highly burnished redware pottery shaman seated with bent legs upon a bulbous posterior. The nude figure has a conical phallus between his thighs and a form-fitting tunic incised with frontal concentric circular motifs as well as diamond and linear motifs on the verso. He wears a radiating necklace and holds a small bowl in one hand and a conical instrument in the other, perhaps as a mortar and pestle for hallucinogenic drug preparation. His elongated head bears an expressive coiffure with a triangular nose, inlaid discoid shell eyes beneath thin brows, tall ears, and full lips, all beneath a crested headdress with an incised zigzagging brim. A broad spout curves upwards from the back, and the entire figure is enveloped in red-brown slip. Size: 9.3" L x 9.8" W x 14.6" H (23.6 cm x 24.9 cm x 37.1 cm)
  
  Colima, located on Mexico's southwestern coast, was during this time part of the shaft tomb culture, along with neighbors to the north in Jalisco and Nayarit. In this culture, the dead were buried down shafts - 3 to 20 meters deep - that were dug vertically or near vertically through the volcanic tuff that makes up the geology of the region. The base of the shaft would open into one or more horizontal chambers with a low ceiling. These shafts were almost always dug beneath a dwelling, probably a family home, and seem to have been used as family mausoleums, housing the remains of many related individuals. This is a figure made to be placed inside those mausoleums, perhaps to mediate between the worlds of the living and the dead.
  
  A stylistically similar example of a shaman figure, depicting a hunchback of a smaller size, hammered for $52,500 at Sotheby's, New York "The Collection of Edwin & Cherie Silver" auction (November 13, 2017, lot 30).
  
  Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-private Hollywood, California, USA collection; ex-Christie's, Paris "Art Africain, Oceanien et Pre-Colombien (Lot 200 -> 684)" auction (sale 5057, June 12, 2003, lot 654)
  
  All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
  
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  #153129

  Condition

  Repairs to brim of hat and back spout, with small chips and light adhesive residue along break lines. Shell eyes are ancient but restored in modern times. Nicks and abrasions to limbs, base, body, spout, and head, with light softening to some finer details, light encrustations, and fading to original pigmentation with scattered areas of fire-darkening. Nice earthen deposits and traces of original pigmentation throughout. Old inventory labels beneath base.
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