Ageless Beauty
Extraordinary artifacts and their journeys through time
Mask of sky and serpent, Maya culture, Mexico, 300-B.C.–300 A.D., stone with shell inlay
Santa Fean asked four local dealers of ancient and pre-Columbian art—all of whom have traveled the globe in search of cultural treasures—about the most memorable finds each has handled in his career, and the most notable pieces each currently has in his collection.
Andrew Hale, Anahita Gallery
There is something wonderful—even miraculous—about being able to handle an object like this bowl that has survived for more than 600 years. From 14th-century Ilkhanid Persia, a branch of the vast Mongol Empire, it can be seen in its shape, colors, and design as a prototype for the Chinese wares of the same period. Its ceramic base, a composite of white clay and ground quartz, is an attempt to copy Chinese porcelain. Of all the types of Chinese ceramics, the blue-and-white type is probably the most easily recognized and imitated in the West, but the style was imported from Persia. In both form and design, the early Chinese blue-and-white ceramics followed Muslim taste and were largely an export item. Just as in today’s global economy, people exchanged technologies and ideas over great distances, competing for success in the marketplace.
Bill Siegal, William Siegal Galleries
There are pieces I collected in the field that I have an incredible emotional contact with. For example, I may have collected them while traveling around in Bolivia in a camper, from a family that had owned them for hundreds of years. There are many pieces like that. In the gallery collection now, I own one of the great Maya masks in the world—with 36 glyphs on the back recounting what all the great deities of the Maya pantheon were doing at the time the mask was created. It’s one of two in the world, but the only one with religious deities; the other’s glyphs represent political figures. Then there’s a textile that came out of a great American collection, a six-foot-square Incan textile as finely woven as any I’ve seen. Its condition is immaculate, and it is visually stunning—the most striking piece of op-art—yet it is from the 16th century.
Jerry Bock, Splendors of the World
Many years ago I built a collection of pre-Columbian items that all related to chocolate. It was for the Stollwerk Company—the biggest chocolate producer in Germany—to introduce the German people to the fact that chocolate came from the Americas. I went to Latin America and started buying anything that related to chocolate. The Mayans actually had glyphs that stood for chocolate, and they had ceremonial vessels with paintings of the royal court, where chocolate was given as a reward or gift. Currently I have a terra cotta figure from around 900 or 1000 a.d., from the Veracruz culture of the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Monumental sculpture in pre-Columbian cultures is rare, and this one is a masterpiece. Most cultures didn’t know how to create large objects. The Veracruz invented a process whereby they could fire the object sitting in a frame, so the whole sculpture would not collapse. When you see things in the context of how they were made and used, they suddenly come alive. This one is anthropomorphic, but he has a monkey head. He is actually a god—he’s sitting on a throne, and in the center of his chest you see a triangular open section and if you look deep, you will see his heart. Because you see this, you know he was a god that needed to receive sacrifice. Sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures stood for regenerating life, because people thought if they didn’t satisfy some gods with blood, they would destroy the world and the human race. The Aztecs had similar gods, but the Veracruz were not encountered by the Spanish, so their gods’ names are not known.
Chris Webster, Webster Collection
In my current collection there’s a ceramic figure made in the Nazca culture area of Peru; it’s a man holding a couple of chiles. It spoke to me, the way he’s depicted, and of course there’s also the importance of the chile in New Mexico. He’s so proud and tired, and when I first saw it, he just caused me to smile. The woman I got at a different time, but I like to have them together as a couple. I guess I’m a romantic. Several come to mind that I no longer have. We’re all just temporary custodians, really. There was a Peruvian textile—a temple piece that told the origin story of the Lambayeque culture, which says the Lambayeque people were carried across the ocean on the backs of turtles. I was totally smitten with this piece, and wanted to acquire it, but first I had to convince my wife that we had to find alternative means to buy our groceries for a while. We lived with it for a number of years, until it was recognized as a masterpiece and we were approached with an offer we couldn’t refuse. It went into a collection of some of the world’s leading textiles.
