A characterful Nayarit San Sebastian red-type figure of a female in orange ware terracotta. The figure is broad, but quite narrow in profile. She has a somewhat large nose, wears an ornamented hat, large ear plugs and a skirt.
 
Pre-Columbian Nayarit West Mexico: Circa 100 BC- 250 AD.
 
Condition: The head has been broken and neatly repaired around the neck, otherwise complete and intact
Height 20 cms (7.9 ins)
 
Provenance: Provenance: Ex Romy Rey Collection, London; collected from the 1980's and onwards.
 
Literature: Compare items 27 and 61; Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico: Catalogue Of The Proctor Stafford Collection at The Los Angeles County Museum Of Art.
 
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 revolved around the shaman, the main head of a religion in which the cult of the dead played a major role.