A terracotta seated male figure of a dignitary wearing a poncho-like robe which covers his upper body. He wears an ornamental headdress and large ear spools.
 
Pre-Columbian Nayarit: Circa 100 BC- 500 AD.
 
Condition: Complete and intact
Height 13.3 cms (5.2 ins)
 
Provenance: Ex Romy Rey Collection, London; collected from the 1980's and onwards.
 
The people on the west coast of Mexico developed a thriving culture between approximately 500 B.C. and 500 AD., in an area of large wetlands and dense jungle. They left no written language, and all that is known about them comes from their ceramic art, which, for its time, is rivalled only by the Han Dynasty in China. The Nayarit is one of the great unknown Mesoamerican cultures. It was a farming people whose society was articulated around the shaman, the main head of a religion in which the cult of the dead played a major role.
 
The ancient artists of West Mexico found beauty in ordinary things and celebrated life in all its complexity and diversity.