MAYA STUCCO BUST OF A DIGNITARY LATE CLASSIC, CIRCA AD 550 - 950

Private Collection, Connecticut, acquired between March 1962 and June 1968

Sotheby's, New York, May 14, 1996, lot 176, consigned by the above

Sotheby's, New York, May 11, 2012, lot 52

Private Collection, acquired at the above auction

The Maya sculpted figures and painted scenes in plaster and stucco as eloquently as they rendered reliefs and freestanding stele in hard stone. Few examples of the prodigious amount of plaster and stucco sculpture have survived the centuries of exposure and erosion.

Stucco sculpture was made from a mixture of lime, gypsum and fine sand, sometimes applied over a mortar and stone armature. The complete sculpture was then painted in colors relevant to the type of deity or figure; this figure retains red and remnants of blue. This dignitary, with a classic elongated nosebridge, wears the courtly attire of turban, large ear ornament and swaggered collar; the torque of the body and turn of his head suggest his rapt attention at a ceremonial event. 

See Stierlin, Mexique, Terre des Dieux, Trésors de l'art précolombien, Geneva, 1998, pl. 222, for a stucco figure in a similar posture.