Nayarit Pottery Seated Female w/ Bowl on Lap

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Pre-Columbian | Tribal | Ethnographic

By Artemis Gallery

Jan 30, 2020

Set Reminder 2020-01-30 10:00:00 2020-01-30 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Pre-Columbian | Tribal | Ethnographic https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/pre-columbian-tribal-ethnographic-4830
Featuring ancient and ethnographic art from around the world, including Pre-Columbian, Native American, African / Tribal, Oceanic, Ethnographic, Spanish Colonial, Fossils, Fine Art, much more. Artemis Gallery info@artemisgallery.com

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• Lot Description
  Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Nayarit, ca. 300 BCE to 300 CE. A hollow, hand-built pottery female figure seated upon attenuated legs which are covered by an ankle-length skirt. Her nude upper body displays globular breasts in front of either rounded shoulder, with one arm held out with delineated fingers, and the other holding a small bowl atop her lap. The stocky neck sports an applied necklace, and white-painted ear spools adorn each ear. Impressed ovoid eyes, a bulbous nose with a huge ring, a smiling mouth filled with teeth, and a smooth brow comprise the stylized visage. A red-and-white striped head band wraps around the tapering forehead, with red slip coating most of the exterior surfaces and providing a colorful ground upon which the cream and black curvilinear motifs are presented. Size: 7.625" W x 10.3" H (19.4 cm x 26.2 cm).
  
  Clay figures like this one are among 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: private Checkowsky collection, Clarkston, Michigan, USA, purchased at Arte Primitivo, New York, USA in 2016; ex-collection of Carl and Wilma Zabel, New Jersey, USA; ex-Dr. John Hilsabeck Estate Collection, Orange County, California, USA, collected 1955-1985. Dr. Hilsabeck was the President of the Board of Directors of the Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, California, USA
  
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  A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
  
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  #143686

  Condition

  Head professionally reattached to neck with small chips, light resurfacing, and overpainting along break lines. Minor nicks to head, body, and limbs, stable fissure beneath legs, with light encrustations, and fading to original pigmentation. Light earthen deposits and fabulous manganese blooms throughout. Old inventory label beneath base.
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