Colima Seated Dignitary with Trophy-Heads, Comala style, Protoclassic, circa 100 BC - AD 300

Dr. and Mrs. William S. Greenspon, New York, acquired prior to 1968
Emile Deletaille, Brussels, acquired from the above
Sotheby's, New York, November 26, 1985, lot 114, consigned by the above 
Private Collection, New York, acquired from the above auction
Ancient Art of the New World, New York
American private collection, acquired from the above in 2006

Hasso von Winning, Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America, New York, 1968, p. 88, fig. 71

This finely modeled tall sculpture is a rare depiction of the warrior/chief figure displaying the ceremonial drinking posture with the charged presence of the trophy-heads at the side of his torso. Seated in a proud and assertive posture, he is in the midst of a ceremony that was the culmination of other events inaugurating the figure into a position of power and authority.

He holds an oval bowl high to his mouth for drinking a ceremonial liquid, and he is distinguished by the trophy-heads tied by crossed bands on his chest to either side of the waist. Each head is wrapped in patterned bands. In the rites of passage for a warrior or leader, the taking of prisoners and their sacrifice was a performative action confirming one's prowess, as well as a means to replenish the earth for the well-being of the larger community. The performative initiation rites were intricately linked to the important ceremonial feasts timed to seasonal agricultural cycles.

The bowl raised up so prominently would have held an important feast drink of either octli, also known as pulque, made from the fermented sap of the agave, or tesvino, a maize beer. The agave was a highly important plant that required lengthy processing for these prized drinks, it was referred to as  “the first plant created by God” (Kristi Butterwick, "Food for the Dead, The West Mexican Art of Feasting" in Richard F. Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, Chicago, 1998, p. 103).

For two highly similar figures, one in the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, see Richard F. Townsend, “Before Gods, Before Kings”, in Townsend, ed., ibid. p. 116, fig. 10; and another in a private collection, see Mireille Holsbeke and Karel Arnaut, Offerings for a New Life, Funerary Images from Pre-Columbian West Mexico, Antwerp, 1998, p. 80, fig. 13.