Nayarit Chinesco Type C Polychrome Female Figure

Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, southern Nayarit, Chinesco Type C, Lagunillas, Protoclassic Period, ca. 100 BCE to 250 CE. A wonderful, hand-built pottery female figure of substantial form standing atop nubbin feet and ample thighs. Highly burnished and decorated with russet, cream, and jet pigment, the figure presents wearing a crosshatched loincloth around her waist, holding both bangle-adorned arms to her hips, and standing with a rigid pose. Her enlarged head features a pair of coffee-bean-shaped eyes, a protruding nose adorned with a septum ring, an impressed mouth, and a pair of tab-shaped ears, all beneath an enormous forehead and a bulbous coiffure. Size: 5.375" W x 10.3" H (13.7 cm x 26.2 cm); 10.6" H (26.9 cm) on included custom stand.

This style of sculpture is known as Chinesco by collectors because of its stylistic similarities to Chinese art. Clay figures like this one are the only remains that we have today of a sophisticated and unique culture in West Mexico - they made no above-ground monuments or sculptures, at least that we know of, which is in strong contrast to developments elsewhere in ancient Mesoamerica. Instead, their tombs were their lasting works of art: skeletons arrayed radially with their feet positioned inward, and clay offerings, like this one, placed alongside the walls facing inward, near the skulls. A large effigy like this one would most likely have flanked the entrance to a tomb in a way that archaeologists have interpreted as guarding. Some scholars have connected these dynamic sculptures of the living as a strong contrast to the skeletal remains whose space they shared, as if they mediated between the living and the dead.

Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-private Orthodontist R.G. collection, Orlando, Florida, USA, purchased November 19, 2019; ex-Artemis Gallery; ex-private Triffo collection, acquired in the 1970s

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Display stands not described as included/custom in the item description are for photography purposes only and will not be included with the item upon shipping.

#169063
Condition Report: Repairs to back of head and inner thigh of one leg, with resurfacing and overpainting along break lines. Minor abrasions and nicks to head, body, and limbs, with light fading to pigment on surface, and a couple of small spalls. Great preservation to pigment and overall figural form. Nice manganese blooms.