OLMEC SEATED FIGURE |

Roberto Ardon, Los Angeles
Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York (inv. no. OM-43), acquired from the above in June, 1968
Howard and Saretta Barnet, New York, acquired from the above on June 17, 1969

The Museum of Primitive Art, New York, Precolumbian Art in New York, Selections from Private Collections, September 12 - November 9, 1969
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership, December 16, 1995 - February 25, 1996, and travelling: the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 14 - June 9, 1996

Julie Jones, Precolumbian Art in New York, Selections from Private Collections, New York, 1969, no. 2
Gerald Berjonneau, Emile Deletaille, and Jean-Louis Sonnery, eds., Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica, Boulogne, 1985, p. 38, pl. 11
Michael D. Coe, ed., The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership, Princeton, 1995, p. 147, cat. no. 17

As aptly described in the catalogue accompanying the groundbreaking Olmec exhibition, "this portly figure [...] reclines with a sense of luxury and ease",¹ exuding a self-assured presence from his corpulent body. His head is slender and oval, and the expression of the upturned face is animated, with full lips parted and the eyes narrowed as if squinting towards brightness. He leans back in counterbalance to his voluminous rounded belly, showing a prominent navel, with his arms reaching forward against the legs and hands loosely resting palms down. He wears a slender loincloth visible only around his waist at the back, with a cap-like striated coiffure, now partially missing on the left side of the head, with a central longer tress down the back of his neck. Male figures of extremely corpulent form are usually seen in small ceramic form from the Las Bocas region; this figure is a rare example in stone, particularly in its animated and mature expression and the particular posture with the extended and bent legs. Another stone figure in this position and of a similar facial style (although of a more slender physiognomy), was found at the heartland site of El Manati on the Gulf Coast.² The Barnet figure was reportedly found in the Chalchuapa region of El Salvador, indicating the trade and influence from the northern Olmec heartland to the southern ceremonial centers.

¹ Coe, ed., The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership, Princeton, 1995, p. 147
² Berrin and Fields, eds., Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico, San Francisco and Los Angeles, 2010, p. 135, pl. 35