Nayarit Standing Figure with Club, Ixtlán del Río Style, Protoclassic, 100 BC - AD 250

Douglas Hague, Los Angeles
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired from the above in June 1967

Inventoried by Hasso von Winning, March 28, 1970, no. 2

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, September 5, 1998 - November 22, 1998,
continuing to
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, December 20, 1998- March 29, 1999

John L. Alsberg and Rodolpho Petschek, Ancient Sculpture from Western Mexico: The Evolution of Artistic Form, Berkeley, 1968, p. 99, fig. 46
Hasso von Winning, The Shaft Tomb Figures of West Mexico, Los Angeles, 1974, p. 150, fig. 221 
Richard F. Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, Chicago, 1998, p. 24, fig. 14, cat. no. 199

Carl Lumholtz was the first to publish figures in the Ixtlán del Rio style. Lumholtz was a Norwegian explorer/anthropologist who traveled by mule from Arizona down through Mexico in 1892, recording and studying indigenous groups including the Huichol and Cora of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Unknown Mexico, 1902, a two volume tome, was a landmark oeuvre with illustrated, highly personal accounts of West Mexico customs and art. The figures illustrated (Fig. 1) include a male warrior and female figure of the types within the Silver collection.

The Silvers' warrior stands firmly with a cluster of clubs or possibly an atlatl, balanced on his right shoulder. His elaborate attire includes the boldly painted tunic of alternating stepped and scrolled motifs, an example of the textile motifs seen on ceramic figures from Chorrera, Ecuador (see discussion in lot 35). He wears short trunks with a long scoop belt and conch shell fastener. He is adorned with rows of tiny bead necklaces, a massive nose ornament, and a tight row of overlapping earrings; all the accoutrements and clothing are finely modeled and elaborately detailed.

As a defining example of a Nayarit warrior, this figure was featured in John Alsberg's 1968 large format book with elegant black-and-white photographs by Rodolfo Petschek, Ancient Sculpture from Western Mexico: The Evolution of Artistic Form. Alsberg declared he had no intention of comparing ancient and contemporary art; he discussed the sculptures purely for their artistic form. Through a limited and now dated approach of promoting there was a coherent shift in West Mexican art styles from archaic to sensuous and fluid (Alsberg, Ancient Sculpture from Western Mexico: The Evolution of Artistic Form, 1968, Preface), Alsberg nonetheless provided an engaging commentary on a wide range of figures.

He found the sculptures "spontaneous and strong, but unrefined and frequently unruly." Describing this figure in the Silver collection, he writes, "It shows a brutal energy which is the salient feature of the familiar figures of warriors and ballplayers planted on colossal legs…the figures are sensuous, uncontrolled and fascinating" (ibid., pp. 98, 100).

For a closely related figure in the Proctor Stafford collection, see Kan, Meighan, and Nicholson, Proctor Stafford Collection, 1970, fig. 16.