TWO COLOMBIAN GOLD FIGURAL ORNAMENTS, TOLIMA OR QUIMBAYA REGION CIRCA AD 500-1000

Lempertz, Cologne, December 14, 1966, lots 1821, 1822

Jan Mitchell, New York, acquired at the above auction

Thence by family descent

PUBLISHED

Julie Jones, Precolumbian Art in New York: Selections from Private Collections, New York, 1969, unpaginated, cat. no. 159 (both figures)

Julie Jones, Heidi King, The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection, New York, 1985, pp. 154-5, cat. no. 36 (both figures)

The Museum of Primitive Art, New York, Precolumbian Art in New York: Selections from Private Collections, September 12-November 9, 1969

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection, New York, May 9-August 11, 1985

The lost-wax casting of gold ornaments was mastered in ancient Colombia by 500 BC. Minute details and important body ornamentation were not overlooked even on small figures such as these pendants. Their outstanding slender noses show bead ornaments, and the slit coffee-bean style eyes impart a trance-like expression. They each wear double belts, necklaces and have elaborate bifurcated spiralled headdresses, one with an extension rising above. For a similar figure from the John Wise collection, designated from the Quimbaya region, see Sotheby's, New York, May 15, 2015, lot 19.