Art of Africa, Oceania and the Americas

Art of Africa, Oceania and the Americas

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 149. HUASTEC SEATED FIGURE, PANUCO REGION LATE PRECLASSIC-PROTOCLASSIC, CIRCA 300 BC - AD 300.

HUASTEC SEATED FIGURE, PANUCO REGION LATE PRECLASSIC-PROTOCLASSIC, CIRCA 300 BC - AD 300

Auction Closed

May 13, 08:41 PM GMT

Estimate

25,000 - 35,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from an American Private Collection

HUASTEC SEATED FIGURE, PANUCO REGION LATE PRECLASSIC-PROTOCLASSIC, CIRCA 300 BC - AD 300


Height: 2 ¾ in (7 cm)


D. Daniel Michel, Chicago, acquired in 1965 (inventory no. 65:116)

Ancient Art of the New World, New York, acquired from the above

American Private Collection, acquired from the above in 1991


PUBLISHED

Everett McNear, High Culture in the Americas before 1500, Chicago, 1982, p. 6, cat. no. 11

The Arts Club of Chicago, High Culture in the Americas before 1500, November 15 - December 31, 1982

Like the preceding lot, this subtle and sensitively modeled figure is a rare example of the exquisite miniature sculpture of Panuco. It appears to be one of the two known "seated personages […] wearing carefully-worked Jacobean-style hats" (Griffin in Goldstein, ed., Ceremonial Sculpture of Veracruz, Brookville, 1987, p. 21).

This figure, which retains the relaxed and dignified bearing of the preceding lot, wears a necklace, ear-spools, and a large hat. Discussing the other figure with a hat, Griffin expresses his belief that the hat "was modeled to the head in clay to leave no doubt as to the identity or rank of the wearer." (ibid.).


See Goldstein, ed., ibid., p. 44, cat. no. 7 for the other figure, once on loan to the Princeton University Art Museum.