Mexico, Huastec culture, Gulf Coast
250–600 AD
Sandstone
Height: 9 in (22.9 cm)
Provenance: Constance McCormick Fearing, Santa Barbara, California, acquired 1950s
The Huastec tradition is one of Mesoamerica's most celebrated stonework traditions, distinguished by its comparative naturalism and lifelike depictions of the human body. Associated with Teenek Maya-speakers of the northern Gulf Coast, Huastec sculptors worked primarily in the rich sandstone deposits along the shore, producing sculpture that ranged in color from ruddy brown to yellow-orange and grey. Although originally embellished with bright pigments, most surviving examples bear only traces of their original polychrome.
This head was acquired in the 1950s by the heir to the McCormick Harvester International family, best known for the Reaper revolutionizing the modern grain trade, and one of the most significant American collectors of Pre-Columbian art of her generation. Constance McCormick Fearing's collection had its own strong sense in sculpture and a particular appeal to the modernist aesthetic; in the 1960s she held an exhibition of many of her Pre-Columbian objects at LACMA in Los Angeles with an accompanying catalog. The broad flat face, defined brow, and simplified features of this head are characteristic of Huastec large-scale production of the Early Classic period.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Mexico, Huastec culture, Gulf Coast
250–600 AD
Sandstone
Height: 9 in (22.9 cm)
Provenance: Constance McCormick Fearing, Santa Barbara, California, acquired 1950s
The Huastec tradition is one of Mesoamerica's most celebrated stonework traditions, distinguished by its comparative naturalism and lifelike depictions of the human body. Associated with Teenek Maya-speakers of the northern Gulf Coast, Huastec sculptors worked primarily in the rich sandstone deposits along the shore, producing sculpture that ranged in color from ruddy brown to yellow-orange and grey. Although originally embellished with bright pigments, most surviving examples bear only traces of their original polychrome.
This head was acquired in the 1950s by the heir to the McCormick Harvester International family, best known for the Reaper revolutionizing the modern grain trade, and one of the most significant American collectors of Pre-Columbian art of her generation. Constance McCormick Fearing's collection had its own strong sense in sculpture and a particular appeal to the modernist aesthetic; in the 1960s she held an exhibition of many of her Pre-Columbian objects at LACMA in Los Angeles with an accompanying catalog. The broad flat face, defined brow, and simplified features of this head are characteristic of Huastec large-scale production of the Early Classic period.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
