Eclectic | New York
Eclectic | New York
Property from a Private Collection, California
Lot Closed
May 1, 07:39 PM GMT
Estimate
3,500 - 4,500 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Private Collection, California
MEZCALA STONE TEMPLE LATE PRECLASSIC, CIRCA 300-100 BC
Height: 5 ¼ in (13.4 cm)
Acquired by the grandfather of the current owner in the 1960s
Thence by descent to the present owner
Mezcala temple models were collected as early as the 19th c. by William Niven among other explorers in Guerrero. Their appeal blossomed in the 1960's after publications by Miguel Covarrubias, and Carlo Gay's "Mezcala Architecture in Miniature" ( in Jones, Houses for the Hereafter, Funerary Temples from Guerrero, Mexico, From the Collection of Arthur M. Bullowa, New York, 1987, pp. 9-10).
This andesite temple is carved with stairs to the upper platform, here supporting two broad columns with a banded, tapering roof comb. See Gay and Pratt, Mezcala, Ancient Stone Sculpture from Guerrero, Mexico, Geneva, 1992, p. 179, fig. 114, for the type.