Costa Rican Quartzite Crocodile Pendant with Curled TailPre-Columbian, Costa Rica,...
Costa Rican Quartzite Crocodile Pendant with Curled TailPre-Columbian, Costa Rica, ca. 500–1000 CE. A miniature crocodilian carved from semi-translucent white quartzite, its long tail sweeping up and curling over the back to enclose a crisp lunette of open space. The blunt snout is worked in openwork, drilled through to leave a row of bared teeth, and the body is reduced to smooth, softly swelling volumes that catch light across the stone. A suspension perforation passes through the forelegs, with a second tiny biconical hole drilled at the tail tip, suggesting the piece hung as a pendant, perhaps within a composite ornament of several elements. Saurian imagery carried considerable weight in the goldwork and lapidary traditions of the isthmus, where the crocodile served as an emblem of predatory power. Presented on a custom tapered hardwood block base. Size: 3.375" W x 1.625" H (8.6 cm W x 4.1 cm H).
The crocodile ranks among the most persistent motifs of Costa Rican and wider Isthmian art, appearing in cast gold pendants, jade axe-gods, and carved stone from the Atlantic Watershed to the Diquis. Its appeal is partly ecological: the caiman dominates the region's rivers and estuaries, and its jaws became shorthand for a devouring, generative force mediating water and land. Lapidaries of the period worked without metal tools, shaping hard siliceous stone by pecking, abrasion with sand slurries, and solid or hollow drilling, techniques that make the pierced snout and paired biconical suspension holes seen here a considerable technical achievement at this scale.
Provenance: Collection of Jimmy Belilty, Miami. Acquired from Latin American Artist Carlos Poveda, Caracas and Paris, 1980 - 1990.
SHIPPING: We coordinate worldwide shipping in-house through specialist international forwarders experienced with fine art and antiquities customs manifests. International buyers must confirm, prior to bidding, that their country's customs authority will accept the item. All duties, taxes, clearance fees, and any costs arising from customs delays, seizures, re-export, returns, or loss in transit are the buyer's sole responsibility. Artemis assumes no liability for items refused entry, detained, or lost after export. We cannot ship ancient items to their country of origin (Egyptian to Egypt, Greek to Greece, etc.).
PAYMENT EXCEPTION: For clients not previously established with Artemis, payment for all gold, precious metal, and gemstone lots must be made by bank wire transfer or certified bank check/money order, without exception.
Item #73102Scattered surface deposits. Intact.
Costa Rican Quartzite Crocodile Pendant with Curled TailPre-Columbian, Costa Rica, ca. 500–1000 CE. A miniature crocodilian carved from semi-translucent white quartzite, its long tail sweeping up and curling over the back to enclose a crisp lunette of open space. The blunt snout is worked in openwork, drilled through to leave a row of bared teeth, and the body is reduced to smooth, softly swelling volumes that catch light across the stone. A suspension perforation passes through the forelegs, with a second tiny biconical hole drilled at the tail tip, suggesting the piece hung as a pendant, perhaps within a composite ornament of several elements. Saurian imagery carried considerable weight in the goldwork and lapidary traditions of the isthmus, where the crocodile served as an emblem of predatory power. Presented on a custom tapered hardwood block base. Size: 3.375" W x 1.625" H (8.6 cm W x 4.1 cm H).
The crocodile ranks among the most persistent motifs of Costa Rican and wider Isthmian art, appearing in cast gold pendants, jade axe-gods, and carved stone from the Atlantic Watershed to the Diquis. Its appeal is partly ecological: the caiman dominates the region's rivers and estuaries, and its jaws became shorthand for a devouring, generative force mediating water and land. Lapidaries of the period worked without metal tools, shaping hard siliceous stone by pecking, abrasion with sand slurries, and solid or hollow drilling, techniques that make the pierced snout and paired biconical suspension holes seen here a considerable technical achievement at this scale.
Provenance: Collection of Jimmy Belilty, Miami. Acquired from Latin American Artist Carlos Poveda, Caracas and Paris, 1980 - 1990.
SHIPPING: We coordinate worldwide shipping in-house through specialist international forwarders experienced with fine art and antiquities customs manifests. International buyers must confirm, prior to bidding, that their country's customs authority will accept the item. All duties, taxes, clearance fees, and any costs arising from customs delays, seizures, re-export, returns, or loss in transit are the buyer's sole responsibility. Artemis assumes no liability for items refused entry, detained, or lost after export. We cannot ship ancient items to their country of origin (Egyptian to Egypt, Greek to Greece, etc.).
PAYMENT EXCEPTION: For clients not previously established with Artemis, payment for all gold, precious metal, and gemstone lots must be made by bank wire transfer or certified bank check/money order, without exception.
Item #73102Scattered surface deposits. Intact.
