Teotihuacan Mask

Everett Rassiga, New York

Judith Small, New York, acquired from the above by 1968

Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, November 9, 1968, lot 58 (illustrated), consigned by the above

André Emmerich, New York (inv. no. P80), acquired at the above auction

William B. Jaffe and Evelyn Annenberg Jaffe Hall, New York, acquired from the above on January 3, 1969

Thence by descent to the present owner

The Isaac Delgado Museum, New Orleans, The Art of Ancient and Modern Latin America, May 10 - June 16, 1968

The Isaac Delgado Museum, ed., The Art of Ancient and Modern Latin America, New Orleans, 1968, n.p., cat. no. 20

Stone masks were the crowning element to impressive ceremonial effigy figures elaborately adorned with feathers, clothing, and supporting headdresses. The masked figures were either promenaded in public events or presented in inner sanctuaries; some may have been attached to funerary bundles. They were the embodiment of social and spiritual power, empowered and activated by their ritual use. The distinct style of masks was copied in regional areas, thus reinforcing and legitimizing their connection to the powerful ruling elite. As the greatest metropolis of the era, Teotihuacan’s reign and influence were carefully maintained and enriched by lapidary art.

It is noteworthy that some masks have been found in compounds or courtyards accompanied by modest pottery and tools, indicating the importance of masks within many social levels.¹

The scholar Esther Pasztory noted that masks “are the faces of the people of Teotihuacan, as they represented themselves; as such they suggest both anonymity and multiplicity”.²

The face is carved with distinct planes that create volume and definition. The delicate raised cheekbones slope into the lower face, the upper and lower lips are carefully faceted and full, the nose is prominently aquiline with attention given to a finely pierced septum, and the suspension holes are carved on the back of the temples and jowls, discreetly out of view from the front. The gray-green stone shows natural reddish-brown encrustation – possibly the remains of cinnabar pigment – on the forehead and beneath the chin. 

¹ Matthew H. Robb, ed., Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire, San Francisco, 2017, p. 343

² Esther Pasztory, Pre-Columbian Art, Cambridge, 1998, p. 69