Huastec Head 2
Mexico
250 - 600 AD
Height 9"
Provenance: Constance McCormick Fearing, Santa Barbara, CA, acquired in the 1950's.
One of Mesoamerica’s most celebrated stonework traditions, Huastec sculpture is distinguished by its comparative naturalism and lifelike depictions of the human body. Its origins date as far back as Early Classic period Veracruz (A.D. 250–600), to a group of Teenek Maya-speakers who continued to occupy the northern Gulf Coast until the time of the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century. Proficient in an array of media, these artists concentrated most of their large-scale efforts on sculpting the rich deposits of sandstone along the Gulf shores, and which range in color from ruddy brown to yellow-orange and grey. Although initially embellished with bright pigments, today these sculptures bear only traces if any of their original polychrome.
These five sculptures here were all collected in the 1950s by the heir to the McCormick Harvester International family whose fortune was made in the farming equipment field and best known for the "Reaper" revolutionizing the modern grain trade. Each of these figures have their own sense in sculpture and very much appeal to the "modern" aesthetic. In the 1960's she had a exhibition of many of her Pre Columbian objects at LACMA in Los Angeles with an accompanying catalog.
Mexico
250 - 600 AD
Height 9"
Provenance: Constance McCormick Fearing, Santa Barbara, CA, acquired in the 1950's.
One of Mesoamerica’s most celebrated stonework traditions, Huastec sculpture is distinguished by its comparative naturalism and lifelike depictions of the human body. Its origins date as far back as Early Classic period Veracruz (A.D. 250–600), to a group of Teenek Maya-speakers who continued to occupy the northern Gulf Coast until the time of the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century. Proficient in an array of media, these artists concentrated most of their large-scale efforts on sculpting the rich deposits of sandstone along the Gulf shores, and which range in color from ruddy brown to yellow-orange and grey. Although initially embellished with bright pigments, today these sculptures bear only traces if any of their original polychrome.
These five sculptures here were all collected in the 1950s by the heir to the McCormick Harvester International family whose fortune was made in the farming equipment field and best known for the "Reaper" revolutionizing the modern grain trade. Each of these figures have their own sense in sculpture and very much appeal to the "modern" aesthetic. In the 1960's she had a exhibition of many of her Pre Columbian objects at LACMA in Los Angeles with an accompanying catalog.
Mexico
250 - 600 AD
Height 9"
Provenance: Constance McCormick Fearing, Santa Barbara, CA, acquired in the 1950's.
One of Mesoamerica’s most celebrated stonework traditions, Huastec sculpture is distinguished by its comparative naturalism and lifelike depictions of the human body. Its origins date as far back as Early Classic period Veracruz (A.D. 250–600), to a group of Teenek Maya-speakers who continued to occupy the northern Gulf Coast until the time of the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century. Proficient in an array of media, these artists concentrated most of their large-scale efforts on sculpting the rich deposits of sandstone along the Gulf shores, and which range in color from ruddy brown to yellow-orange and grey. Although initially embellished with bright pigments, today these sculptures bear only traces if any of their original polychrome.
These five sculptures here were all collected in the 1950s by the heir to the McCormick Harvester International family whose fortune was made in the farming equipment field and best known for the "Reaper" revolutionizing the modern grain trade. Each of these figures have their own sense in sculpture and very much appeal to the "modern" aesthetic. In the 1960's she had a exhibition of many of her Pre Columbian objects at LACMA in Los Angeles with an accompanying catalog.