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Standing male figure

Standing male figure

AD 800–1550
Object Placeeastern Costa Rica
Medium/TechniqueBasalt
DimensionsOverall: 42.5 × 23.7 × 10.5 cm (16 3/4 × 9 5/16 × 4 1/8 in.)
Credit LineGift from the Collection of Shirley and Hy Zaret
Accession number2008.196
On View
On view
ClassificationsSculpture
Collections
Description
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.
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.