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THBMatched Pair Sinu 10K Gold Earrings - Birds, 5.1 gr
Lot 140e
About Seller
Artemis Gallery
686 S Taylor Ave, Ste 106
Louisville, CO 80027
United States
Selling antiquities, ancient and ethnographic art online since 1993, Artemis Gallery specializes in Classical Antiquities (Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Near Eastern), Asian, Pre-Columbian, African / Tribal / Oceanographic art. Our extensive inventory includes pottery, stone, metal, wood, glass and textil...Read more
Live Auction in Progress ... Currently on Lot Estimate:
$1,000 - $1,400
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About Auction
Live
By Artemis Gallery
Jun 7, 2018
Set Reminder
2018-06-07 09:00:00
2018-06-07 09:00:00
America/New_York
Bidsquare
Bidsquare : Clearance Sale - Ancient / Ethnographic Art
https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/clearance-sale---ancient-ethnographic-art-3264
Looking for a bargain on authentic ancient and ethnographic art? These lots are going, going, gone! Artemis Gallery info@artemisgallery.com
Looking for a bargain on authentic ancient and ethnographic art? These lots are going, going, gone! Artemis Gallery info@artemisgallery.com
View Full Catalog (396)
- Lot Description
Pre-Columbian, Colombia, Sinu, ca. 10th to mid 16th century CE. Finely crafted from 10K gold, this pair of crescent shaped earrings was cast via the lost wax (cire perdue) process. Each has an intricate composition of two filigreed (displaying a delicate lacelike openwork continuous weave motif) registers separated by striated bands. Perched on the ends of each are twin stylized, long-beaked birds. On top of each, the suspension ring is thick and substantial. Size: 1.75" W x 1" H (4.4 cm x 2.5 cm); 5.1 grams total weight
Similar examples have been written about by Heidi King of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in "The Art of Precolumbian Gold." King writes, "Ear ornaments are ubiquitous in the personal jewelry of ancient America. South American peoples were especially fond of their use, and, for millennia, they made the ornaments in an enormous variety of pattern, size, and material. Many of the shapes and sizes of these ornaments are so extraordinary that to people of twentieth-century sensibility they seem unwearable. That is not the case with the pairs of ear pendants here, for they conform to a familiar, present-day pattern. They could be worn, more or less, comfortably, hanging from the earlobes. The delicate wire work of which they are composed gives the ornaments a light and graceful aspect of great appeal. Indeed they were much admired in ancient times too, for this type of ornament was made in some quantity."
King continues, "During the sixteenth century, the Sinu region of Caribbean Colombia, where ornaments of this type have been identified, was very rich in gold, a fact much commented upon by the Spanish conquerors. The desire for gold soon led them to search not only the living but the dead, and the looting of ancient graves began. Gold objects had been important mortuary offerings in the Sinu for centuries." (The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection" edited by Julie Jones. Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1985, p. 164) Goldwork that survived such plundering is understandably rare.
Provenance: ex-private Los Angeles, California, USA collection; ex-Harmer Rooke Gallery, New York, New York, USA, August 1991, Lot 135
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.
A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
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#133662Very slight bending to form, with some extremely light surface encrustation. Hook on one of them has what looks like an ancient repair. A master jeweler could easily make these wearable.Condition
- Shipping Info
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