Arts d'Afrique, d'Océanie et des Amériques

Arts d'Afrique, d'Océanie et des Amériques

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 5. Calima Gold Diadem.

Property from a European Private Collection

Calima Gold Diadem

Yotoco Period, circa AD 100 - 700

Auction Closed

December 12, 04:12 PM GMT

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 EUR

Lot Details

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Description

Property from a European Private Collection


Calima Gold Diadem

Yotoco Period, circa AD 100 - 700


Height: 11 in (28 cm); width: 10 ⅝ in (27 cm)

André Emmerich, New York (inv. no. B-14)

European Private Collection, acquired from the above on December 9, 1967

Thence by descent

The elaborate headdress is embossed with an enigmatic human face with closed eyes, adorned with large, convex disks as earrings and an H-shaped nose ornament, worked with a smaller face on the surface, and covering most of the face, the side flanges decorated with beadwork and dangling elements, with bipartite rays emanating from the top and an arrow-shaped ray extruding from below.


This type of facial representation is found on the well-known kidney-shaped pectorals (see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc. no. 1979.206.507) with little to no variation in the iconography.


Such Calima regalia was first hammered in a sheet and then details were sculpted, probably over a mold, such as the high relief face and further embellished with beadwork along with an array of dangles attached with gold wires.


Such a headdress ornament, also dubbed a frontal, was probably attached to the front of a textile headdress. Fully outfitted with other equally resplendent gold objects, Calima high-ranking elite and rulers would have shone brightly, thereby associating themselves with the sun and concomitantly with its cosmic energy.


For elaborate diadems see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc. no. 66.196.26; see also Timothy Stroud, ed., The Art of Gold: The Legacy of Pre-Hispanic Colombia, Milan, p. 91.