This mask is made of a type of calcite known as Mexican onyx; the material may have come from the mining area near the present-day town of Tecali (Puebla, Mexico). While onyx is an admirably durable material for the production of architectural elements and portable art, it is also vulnerable to erosion and less resistant to water than plaster.
This mutability of onyx has made this mask’s front surface a welter of erosion scars, with several areas on the forehead, around the eyes, the nose and the cheeks repeating the same pattern of textile impressions. The mask has no textile impressions on its back surface. This indicates the coincidence of two probable circumstances: that the mask was immersed in water or at least kept damp for a long period of time, and that the mask’s front was wrapped in textiles, while its back has no fabric impressions. This would occur if the mask had been affixed to a bundle, and then wrapped in textiles.
The mask provides valuable and intriguing evidence about textiles; it gives an idea of the kind of fabric that would have been used in binding a precious stone mask to what was probably an important mummy bundle. This evidence also reminds us that there is much that we do not understand about the lives of the Teotihuacanos, and one of those areas of enigma pertains to the production of the cloth that was so clearly in abundant use.
Bibliography
Benson, Elizabeth P. 1963 Handbook of the Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art. Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C., p. 2, cat. 4.
Bliss, Robert Woods 1947 Indigenous Art of the Americas: Collection of Robert Woods Bliss. National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian institution, Washington, D.C., p. 20, 98, cat. 93.
Bliss, Robert Woods 1957 Pre-Columbian Art: The Robert Woods Bliss Collection. Text and Critical Analyses by S. K. Lothrop, Joy Mahler and William F. Foshag. Phaidon, New York. p. 239, cat. 38, pl. XXX.
Greffulhe, Henri de and Sotheby & Co. (London England) 1937 Catalogue of a Selected Portion of the Renowned Collection of Pictures and Drawings: Formed by the Comte Greffulhe (1848-1932) ... Which Will Be Sold by Auction by Messrs. Sotheby & Co. ... Thursday, the 22nd of July, 1937. Sotheby & Co., London. pl. IV, fig. 179.
Read, Herbert Edward 1956 The Art of Sculpture. Bollingen Series, 35. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 3. Pantheon Books, New York. pl. 149.
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 1957 Artes De México. 17. Began with issue for Oct./Nov. 1953. vols. Artes de México, México, D.F., pl. 8.
Ries, Maurice Ruddell (ED.) 1942 Ancient American Art, 500 B.C.-A.D. 1500; the Catalog of an Exhibit of the Art of the Pre-European Americas, April-June 1942, Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara. cat. 149.
Sotheby 1937 Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Indian and South American Antiquities, Native Art. Sotheby, London. cat. 179, pl. IV.
Exhibition History
"Ancient American Art", Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA, April - June 1942; M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA, July - August 1942; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR, September - October 1942 (catalogue # 194).
"Indigenous Art of the Americas", National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, April 1947 to May 1948 and February 1954 to July 1962.
"The Collector's Microbe: Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss and the Dumbarton Oaks Collections," Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, 4/9/ - 9/9/2008.
"Carved in Stone: Hardstone Objects from the Collection of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss," Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, 7/15/2010 - 1/15/2011.
Acquisition History
Formerly in the Mrs. Jean Holland Collection.
Purchased from Sotheby's, London (auction house), by Robert Woods Bliss, June 9 1937.
Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art, Washington, DC, 1937-1962.
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Pre-Columbian Collection, Washington, DC.
