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Standing male figure
Atlantic Watershed
Late Period V-Period VI
AD 800–1550
Object Place: eastern Costa Rica, Atlantic Watershed Region
Medium/Technique
Basalt
Dimensions
Overall: 42.5 × 23.7 × 10.5 cm (16 3/4 × 9 5/16 × 4 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift from the Collection of Shirley and Hy Zaret
Accession Number2008.196
CollectionsAmericas
ClassificationsSculpture
This successful combatant wields a baton-and-mace weapon and grasps a rope and the long hair of a human trophy head hanging down his back. Warriors are common in later monumental sculpture from central Costa Rica, attesting to a shift from power based on religious authority to one increasingly derived from military and political prowess.
DescriptionStanding male figure with arms bent on chest, the hands clasping a club weapon (proper right) and a rope tied to a severed human head hanging on his back (proper left hand).
Provenance1964, purchased in Costa Rica by Richard P. Scheifele, Greenwich, CT [see note]; May 16, 1989, anonymous (Scheifele) sale, Sotheby's, New York, lot 277, to Lands Beyond Gallery, New York; sold by Lands Beyond Gallery to Hy and Shirley Zaret, Westport, CT; 2008, gift of Shirley Zaret to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 25, 2008)
NOTE: According to information supplied by Sotheby's, the consignor acquired this in Costa Rica in 1964 and exported it, through the National Museum of Anthropology of Costa Rica, in 1965.
NOTE: According to information supplied by Sotheby's, the consignor acquired this in Costa Rica in 1964 and exported it, through the National Museum of Anthropology of Costa Rica, in 1965.