SOUTHERN PERU, 200-600 A.D.

Details

A NAZCA SHELL 'PECTORAL' NECKLACE
SOUTHERN PERU, 200-600 A.D.
11 ½ in. (29 cm.) high; 14 ½ in. (36 cm.) long

Provenance

The Merrin Gallery, New York, 1986.
Collection Barbier-Mueller, Geneva, Inv. no. 532-40
Collection Barbier-Meuller; sold Sotheby's, Paris, 22-23 March 2013, lot 95.

Literature

Arte pré-colombiana da colecção Barbier-Mueller, 1995, pl. 105.
Ritual Arts of the New World: Pre-Columbian America, 2000, cat. 107, p. 342.
La Collection Barbier-Mueller, Art Précolombien, Vol. II, p. 140, fig. 284.

Exhibited

Lisbon, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Arte pré-colombiana da colecção Barbier-Mueller, 23 March - 4 June, 1995. Barcelona, Museu Barbier-Mueller d’Art Precolombí,
Camino del Inca, el pasado de los Andes, 9 June 2011 - September 2012.

Special notice

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Brought to you by

Benedict Winter

BWinter@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2203

Lot Essay

This necklace or pectoral would have been a particularly treasured and status-symbol for the elite of Nazca society whether civil, political or religious. In Pre-Hispanic Peru, textiles and fashion were very important and from ancient times the people had access to good raw materials; cotton and the wool of lamas and alpacas in a variety of colours, providing a basis for trading, bartering and of course fashion.

The provenance of the present lot is also exceptional for a Pre-Columbian piece of jewellery. The Barbier-Mueller Museum, founded in 1977 by avid-collector Josef Müller, in Geneva is the private museum of the Barbier-Mueller family, with a renowned collection of over 7,000 early works of art from tribal and classical antiquity

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