Lot 36

Around 200 B.C., peoples in the western region of Mexico, encompassing the coastal Pacific to the Sierra Madre Occidental, were living in small, economically successful communities in a land of abundant resources. The inhabitants of the area that comprised the modern Mexican states of Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima during a six-hundred year period (300 B. C.-A. D. 300), had dominant family lineages that flourished and remained intact for generations. Like many other cultures of the ancient world, the West Mexicans placed objects in these tombs to accompany the deceased to the afterlife. Perishable offerings of textile, wood and food have vanished but lively ceramic figures survive. Clearly the artists of ancient western Mexico portrayed their world through these expressive pottery forms of these warriors, musicians, male and female couples and the rich world of animals observed in their environment. In the worldview of the creators of these ceramic offerings, found in the graves of the most humble to the most elite, they became an essential element in the network of vital religious connections between the worlds of the living and the dead.

NAYARIT COUPLE, SAN SEBASTIAN STYLE

PROTOCLASSIC, CA. 100 B. C.- A. D. 250

Details

NAYARIT COUPLE, SAN SEBASTIAN STYLE
Protoclassic, ca. 100 B. C.- A. D. 250
The matrimonial pair, each of robust build standing on large, arched feet, the female with prominent breasts and grasping a small vessel to her chest, the make holding a tube to his mouth, solely decorated with jewelry and body tattoos in black.
Heights: 18 3/8 and 18½ in. (46.6 and 46 cm.) (2)

Provenance

Acquired in the early 1950s

Exhibited

Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico, 1959, figs. 31 and 31a

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Lot Essay

One of the most universal genre of figures in all styles and areas of Western Mexico are pairs of men and women. The broad distribution and frequency of such couples may indicate their function as commemorating marriage or betrothal. In traditional societies, marriage typically entailed one of the spouses in a change of family, clan, village or tribe, and only at times in establishing a new household. Of all the Mesoamerican sources the marriage texts and the codices, pictorial manuscripts, of the Aztecs portray the events in the fullest detail. The bride and groom received gifts and speeches were made. Food was offered and four days of feasting ensued. One cannot determine if such were performed 1200 years before the Aztec. Nonetheless one can assume by the quantity of surviving terracotta pairs in tombs that probably these are testimonials of an important rite.

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