Nayarit Seated Male Figure, Lagunillas Type C, Protoclassic, circa 100 BC - AD 250

Edward H. Merrin, New York
Gray and Patsy R. Taylor, Greenwich, acquired from the above by 1971

Richard F. Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, Chicago, 1998, p. 26, fig. 17, cat. no. 208

This figure is one of a few closely related sculptures from a subgroup of the Lagunillas ("Chinesco") type from Nayarit. The figures are distinguished by their white faces and highly decorated bodies. Their stylized bodies show slender legs and arms of exaggerated length and finely modeled triangular faces. This male figure appears to be in an advanced stage of a trance, the rounded back shows rows of ribs likely from numerous days of fasting. His white face is accented by the flaring darkened eye masks with narrow slit eyes, the ears are characteristically scooped out to the side as if indicating his sense of hearing.

The body decoration is finely executed with geometric patterns creating delineated fields of repeated designs. Such specific body paint or tattooing may indicate a phase of a particular rite of passage, or the emblems of a clan.

The closely related group of figures includes the figure formerly in the Monique Grant collection, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 2014.244); the figure in the Museo Amparo, Puebla de Zaragoza (inv. no. 52 22 MA FA 57PJ 1138), illustrated in Elizabeth Kennedy Easby and John F. Scott, eds., Before Cortes: Sculpture of Middle America, New York, 1970, p. 138, cat. no. 101; and the figure sold at Sotheby’s, New York, May 19, 2001, lot 504.