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Bird effigy pendant with suspended gold disk
Quimbaya
A.D. 500–1530
Object Place: Cauca and Magdalena River Valleys, Department of Quindío, Colombia
Medium/Technique
Gold
Dimensions
Overall: 1 x 2.1 x 1.2 cm (3/8 x 13/16 x 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds donated by Landon T. Clay
Accession Number1975.228
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsJewelry / Adornment – Pendants
DescriptionHammered gold anthropomorphic bird effigy adornment with small gold disk suspended from a rod protruding from the effigy's head. The body is humanoid and rendered frontally, and the head is avian and rendered in profile. The head originally was bilaterally symmetrical but the proper left head has broken away. Two perforations at each side allow for stringing this bead-like pendant, likely one of many from a necklace or similar body adornment.
ProvenanceBy 1908, collected in Colombia by Joaquin Arciniégas (b. 1865 - d. 1930), San José, Costa Rica and San Salvador, El Salvador; August 6, 1929, sold in San Salvador by Arciniégas to his brother-in-law, José Daniel Villatoro Rugama (b. 1887 - d. 1958), San Salvador; January 10, 1930, sold by Rugama to Oliverio Girondo (b. 1891 - d. 1967), Paris and Argentina. January 2, 1975, sold by Leon Buki (dealer), Buenos Aires, through Marcelo Buki, to Alphonse Jax (dealer), New York; 1975, sold by Alphonse Jax to the MFA. (Accession Date: March 12, 1975)
NOTE: The Arciniégas collection (MFA accession nos. 1975.35 - 1975.273) was offered to the Museum in 1975, accompanied by documentation of its ownership by Joaquin Arcienégas as early as 1908; photographs of it in the Arciniégas collection; and receipts for the collection’s sale in 1929 and 1930. Arciniégas had the collection in Costa Rica by 1908 and El Salvador by 1916; he asked his brother-in-law to sell the collection, and it was shipped to Paris for sale in December 1930/January 1931.
NOTE: The Arciniégas collection (MFA accession nos. 1975.35 - 1975.273) was offered to the Museum in 1975, accompanied by documentation of its ownership by Joaquin Arcienégas as early as 1908; photographs of it in the Arciniégas collection; and receipts for the collection’s sale in 1929 and 1930. Arciniégas had the collection in Costa Rica by 1908 and El Salvador by 1916; he asked his brother-in-law to sell the collection, and it was shipped to Paris for sale in December 1930/January 1931.