Description
This lost wax cats pendant, represents an anthropomorphic jaguar blowing a conch-shell trumpet. The principal head is flanked by a pair of crocodile heads, similar to another pair which projects from the thighs. One each knee is a full-face head of an unidentified animal while two serpent heads come out of the feet.
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. 44, cat. 234.
Birmingham Museum of Art 1960 Pan-American Exhibition. Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham. pl. 8.
Easby, Dudley T. 1959 Golden Treasure from the New World: Pre-Columbus: South American Fortnight. Neiman-Marcus, Dallas. cat. 48.
Graham, Mark Miller 2003 Creation Imagery in the Goldwork of Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. In Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 9 and 10 October 1999, Jeffrey Quilter and John W. Hoopes, eds., pp. 279-299. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, Washington, D.C. p. 286, fig 8.
Lothrop, Samuel K. 1937 Coclé: An Archaeological Study of Central Panama. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University ; V. 7-8. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. p. 71, fig. 44.
Uhle, Max 1925 Cronologia Y Relaciones De Las Antiguas Civilizaciones Panameñas. Quito. fig. 2.
Von Winning, Hasso and Alfred Stendahl 1968 Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America. Harry N. Abrams, New York. pl. 574.
Related:
Lothrop, Samuel K. 1950 Archaeology of Southern Veraguas, Panama. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 9, No. 3. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Mass., fig. 75.
Lothrop, Samuel K. 1963 Archaeology of the Diquís Delta, Costa Rica. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University; V. 51. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Mass., pl. XXXIX.
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design 1941 Bulletin of the Museum of Art. XXIX. 1 & 2 vols.
Exhibition History
"Golden Treasure from the New World", Nieman-Marcus, Dallas, TX, 10/18 - 10/31/1959.
"Pan-American Exhibition", Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL, 2/5 - 2/29/1960.
"Indigenous Art of the Americas", National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, September 1960 to July 1962.
"The Collector's Microbe: Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss and the Dumbarton Oaks Collections," Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, 4/9/ - 11/9/2008.
Acquisition History
Formerly in the collection of Otto Haack.
Purchased from Ralph M. Chait, New York (dealer), by Robert Woods Bliss, November 9, 1956
Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art, Washington, DC, 1956-1962.
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Pre-Columbian Collection, Washington, DC.
