AN IMPORTANT TOLIMA ANTHROPOMORPHIC GOLD FIGURAL PENDANT

Description:

Colombia, Central Highlands, circa AD 500 -1000
H. 7,5 cm; B. 6,5 cm
In shape of a flat, stylized human figure with facial features attributed to a Jaguar such as beady eyes and elongated fangs. The reverse with two suspension loops for attaching a cord. Lost-wax cast process and hammered. 19 g.
The Tolima peoples of Colombia's Magdalena Valley produced a distinctive type of gold objects and figural pendants that had a high degree of consistency over a considerable period of time. These objects are renowned for their abstract minimal style dominated by geometric symmetry of both straight and curvilinear form.These pendants with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic references, were worn about the neck suspended from cords or thongs. Their standard, identifiable forms verge on abstraction, but facial features such as the long, slender noses, beady eyes, and toothy mouths are depicted more realistically. It has been suggested that the animal references of Tolima figural pendants, relate the figures to shamanism charged with symbolic content.
From the Ludwig Bretschneider Collection (1909-1987), assembled before 1960, illustrated on an exhibition leaflet, when his showrooms were still located in Leopoldstr. 38A, in Munich, prior to 1959 - Very minor wear, the reverse with a small rep.