Chimu Miniature Sheet Gold Idols | Repousse Figures (pr)

Pre-Columbian, Peru, Chimu, ca. 1000–1250 CE. A pair of miniature standing idols raised in the round from hammered sheet gold, each worked to a hollow cylindrical body. The larger holds broad hands against the chest beneath a bold repousse face, its heavy brow, lobed ears and beaked nose crowned by a flaring headdress. Its companion is plainer, a smooth tapering column with low relief features and a domed cap. Figures of this scale were made as offerings, tucked into elite burials or votive caches along the north coast, and their metal is not pure: XRF places the larger at roughly 10.2K and the smaller at 15.6K, both silver-rich golds of the sort Andean smiths favored. Mounted together on a custom pedestal. Size: 2" W x 1" H (5.1 cm W x 2.5 cm H); Large idol tests as 10.2K gold: 42.6% gold, 2% tungsten, 52.4% silver, 2.6% copper, .4% germanium; Smaller idol: 15.6K gold: 65% gold, 30.71% silver, 3.7% copper.

Chimu goldsmiths of the Peruvian north coast inherited the metallurgical repertoire of the Moche and industrialized it, working from the capital at Chan Chan in specialized artisan barrios. Their preferred technique was not casting but hammering: ingots beaten into paper-thin foil, raised over forms, and joined by crimping or mechanical seams rather than solder. Miniature anthropomorphic idols of this kind belong to a broad Andean tradition of small votive effigies, kin to the Inca illa and the later cast figures deposited in high-altitude shrines, offered to huacas and interred with the dead.

The XRF readings are worth reading closely: silver at 52.4 percent in the larger figure exceeds the gold content outright, a composition consistent with the naturally auriferous silver alloys of Andean placer sources rather than deliberate debasement. Surfaces were typically brought to a golden finish by depletion gilding, leaching the baser metals from the outer skin to leave a gold-rich face over an alloyed core.

Provenance: Private American collection. Ex. Lodi Collection, Pasadena, CA.

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Item #

73227

Condition
Overall crinkled surface, and some loss on the top center of his crown, and a small hole on the lower left side. A modern gold band around the base and a small sheet gold patch on his lower left leg. Some normal general surface crinkles, otherwise intact.

Buyer's Premium
30%