Provenance Information

Reportedly collection of Dr. Franz Ebstein until 1968 ; Ernst Barash (New York, 1968-2017) ; [ David Bernstein Pre-Columbian Art by 2017]

Exhibition Information

None

Publication Information

None

Section of the AAMD Guidelines relied upon for the exception to 1970

Informed judgement that works were outside of the country of modern discovery before 1970

Explain why the object fits the exception set forth above

This work was reportedly in the collections of Dr. Franz Ebstein and Ernst Barash before 1970, but the Metropolitan Museum has not been able to independently verify this information. Dr. Ebstein was a collector of pre-Columbian art in the 1960s. Although this work was not included he is among the lenders to is a 1969 exhibition Selections from Private Collections at the Museum of Primitive Art in New York. Before Dr. Ebstein’s death in 1977, Mr. Barash acquired much of his collection, including this work. A photographic slide of the work that is automatically time stamped 1968 with a Kodak logo of that era also suggests that the work was in an American collection by that date.