Olmec Jade Figure

Merrin Gallery, New York

Private Collection, California, acquired from the above in the early 1970s

Another Private Collection, California, acquired from the above in 2013

Thence by descent to the present owner

The compact warrior figure is finely detailed with key elements defining his status. He holds a short scepter with the left hand cupped over and the right hand cupped forward, a gesture most closely associated with monumental figures holding a ceremonial bar referring to “raising the world tree.” His large oval face is carved in fine and shallow relief with large oval eyes and pupils, broad flaring nose and full lips. His close fitting headcloth is secured with a band adorned with two medallions, the flap continues down the back of the neck. His triangular loincloth is secured by a waistband and the narrow chest band indicated also crosses the top of the arms. It is drilled under the arms and between the legs.

Small portable sculptures of elite figures in precious stone were an important genre of Olmec lapidary arts, these objects would have been traded and cherished in reuse. The figure is a fine example of the result of exposure to an intense heat, whereby the brilliant green jade transformed the surface to the rich brown patina. During an earlier repair of the horizontal break on the figure’s chest, the original matrix of green jade was revealed and recorded. Previous opportunities to investigate the cause of the brown jade color by inspecting the interior cross-section breaks, also revealed the original blue-green matrix of the jade.

"I’ve suggested that Olmec brown jade carvings that appear brown or white on the surface are blue green jades heated in cremations or ritual fires that altered the color of the surface and turned it brown, cream or white. Mesoamericans treasured blue, blue-green and emerald- green color jade and it always struck me as odd that some important jade objects were a different color. The brown colored stone surrounding the emerald-green core of this Olmec figure may well have been caused by exposure to intense heat for a relatively short period of time” (Peter David Joralemon, personal communication. A full discussion including comparable brown colored jade figures is available upon request). 

Cf. Figures of this style from the Gulf Coast include two helmeted figures holding a staff, one being a brown jade figure, see Michael D. Coe, et al., eds.,The Olmec World, Ritual and Rulership, Princeton University, 1995, p.246, pl.147 and p. 246, fig. 2; also see the brown jade mask, p. 267, pl. 182. For the monumental basalt figures from El Azulzul and San Martín Pajapan with this particular gesture raising a scepter, see Kathleen Berrin and Virginia M. Fields, eds., Olmec Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico, San Francisco, 2011, p. 146, 147, pls. 61-62, and p. 11, fig. 1.