Antique and Collectables

Category: Pre-Columbian

Description: This item is a Pre Columbian metate, shaped like a sort of bench that was used for the grinding of grains for use in bread. It is made of lava rock and stands on three legs with a jaguar's head at the front.

Material: Lava Rock

Maker/Artist: Unknown

Date: 800-1500 A.D.

Provenance: Sold at Christie's 18 November 1982, Lot 312

History: re-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas until the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and the time period marked by Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas. Pre-Columbian art thrived throughout the Americas from at least, 13,000 BCE to 1500 CE. Many Pre-Columbian cultures did not have writing systems, so visual art expressed cosmologies, world views, religion, and philosophy of these cultures, as well as serving as mnenomic devices. During the period before and after European exploration and settlement of the Americas; including North America, Central America, South America and the islands of the Caribbean, the Bahamas, the West Indies, the Antilles, the Lesser Antilles and other island groups, indigenous native cultures produced a wide variety of visual arts, including painting on textiles, hides, rock and cave surfaces, bodies especially faces, ceramics, architectural features including interior murals, wood panels, and other available surfaces. Unfortunately, many of the perishable surfaces, such as woven textiles, typically have not been preserved, but Precolumbian painting on ceramics, walls, and rocks have survived more frequently.

Dimensions: H 7 in W 21.5 in D 12.25 in

Size of Artwork:

Weight: 31.6 pounds

Condition: This item is very porous and as such has a rough surface and distinct wear along it.

This item is very porous and as such has a rough surface and distinct wear along it.