Provenance Information

Collection of Paul Arany, New York, probably by the late 1960s; [Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc., New York]; purchased by Assen and Christine Nicolov, Seattle, Washington, Oct. 27, 1998

Exhibition Information

None known

Publication Information

None known

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

Based on the results of provenance research, this labret was outside its probable country of modern discovery (Mexico) by the late 1960s. Per email correspondence with Throckmorton Fine Art employee Dimitri Treantafilos, Spencer Throckmorton confirmed that this labret (plus eleven others) came to the gallery from the collection of Paul Arany, who collected them while working in Mexico for the oil industry during the 1960s, thus placing them outside their country of modern discovery before 1970. The labret cleared a search conducted by the Art Loss Register. The Seattle Art Museum’s collection includes a few pieces of adornment—ear spools, pendants, necklaces—but not labrets. With this acquisition the museum can look cross-culturally at the practice of wearing lip plugs and other bodily adornments.

Provenance Information

Collection of Paul Arany, New York, probably by the late 1960s; [Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc., New York]; purchased by Assen and Christine Nicolov, Seattle, Washington, Oct. 27, 1998

Exhibition Information

None known

Publication Information

None known

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

Based on the results of provenance research, this labret was outside its probable country of modern discovery (Mexico) by the late 1960s. Per email correspondence with Throckmorton Fine Art employee Dimitri Treantafilos, Spencer Throckmorton confirmed that this labret (plus eleven others) came to the gallery from the collection of Paul Arany, who collected them while working in Mexico for the oil industry during the 1960s, thus placing them outside their country of modern discovery before 1970. The labret cleared a search conducted by the Art Loss Register. The Seattle Art Museum’s collection includes a few pieces of adornment—ear spools, pendants, necklaces—but not labrets. With this acquisition the museum can look cross-culturally at the practice of wearing lip plugs and other bodily adornments.

Provenance Information

Collection of Paul Arany, New York, probably by the late 1960s; [Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc., New York]; purchased by Assen and Christine Nicolov, Seattle, Washington, Oct. 27, 1998

Exhibition Information

None known

Publication Information

None known

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

Based on the results of provenance research, this labret was outside its probable country of modern discovery (Mexico) by the late 1960s. Per email correspondence with Throckmorton Fine Art employee Dimitri Treantafilos, Spencer Throckmorton confirmed that this labret (plus eleven others) came to the gallery from the collection of Paul Arany, who collected them while working in Mexico for the oil industry during the 1960s, thus placing them outside their country of modern discovery before 1970. The labret cleared a search conducted by the Art Loss Register. The Seattle Art Museum’s collection includes a few pieces of adornment—ear spools, pendants, necklaces—but not labrets. With this acquisition the museum can look cross-culturally at the practice of wearing lip plugs and other bodily adornments.

Provenance Information

Collection of Paul Arany, New York, probably by the late 1960s; [Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc., New York]; purchased by Assen and Christine Nicolov, Seattle, Washington, Oct. 27, 1998

Exhibition Information

None known

Publication Information

None known

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

Based on the results of provenance research, this labret was outside its probable country of modern discovery (Mexico) by the late 1960s. Per email correspondence with Throckmorton Fine Art employee Dimitri Treantafilos, Spencer Throckmorton confirmed that this labret (plus eleven others) came to the gallery from the collection of Paul Arany, who collected them while working in Mexico for the oil industry during the 1960s, thus placing them outside their country of modern discovery before 1970. The labret cleared a search conducted by the Art Loss Register. The Seattle Art Museum’s collection includes a few pieces of adornment—ear spools, pendants, necklaces—but not labrets. With this acquisition the museum can look cross-culturally at the practice of wearing lip plugs and other bodily adornments.

Provenance Information

[David Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles, California], by the late 1950s; private collection, Los Angeles, California, by 1980; [Sotheby’s, New York, Pre-Columbian Art, Nov. 25, 1996, sale no. 6921, lot no. 187, reproduced]; by private sale through Sotheby’s to Assen and Christine Nicolov, Seattle, Washington, Dec. 15, 1997

Exhibition Information

None known

Publication Information

Karl Herbert Mayer, Maya Monuments: Sculptures of Unknown Provenance in the United States, Ramona, 1980, pp.37-38; illustrated in Mayer, Maya Monuments, Supplement I, Berlin, 1987, pl. 34.

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

Based on the results of provenance research, this Maya panel in two sections was outside its probable country of modern discovery (Mexico) by the late 1950s. Per the provenance published in Karl Herbert Mayer’s Maya Monuments, the panels were in the possession of David Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles, California, by the late 1950s. This fact is corroborated by the provenance included in the auction catalogue for Sotheby’s Pre-Columbian Art auction (sale no. 6921) on November 25, 1996: “Primus/Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles, acquired in the late 1950s.” The piece was published twice by Karl Herbert Mayer (1980, 1987). The panels cleared a search conducted by the Art Loss Register. SAM’s Pre-Columbian collection has very few works of scale, and this monumental piece would add a unique example of architectural art and offer an opportunity to present important themes of Maya iconography.

Provenance Information

D. Daniel Michel, Chicago (#66:128), 1966-1991; Ancient Art of the New World, New York, 1991; private U.S. collection, 1991-2016; acquired by the Princeton University Art Museum, 2016

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

Based on the results of provenance research, the Princeton University Art Museum can make an informed judgment that the object was outside its probable country of modern discovery before 1970. D. Daniel Michel gave each item in his collection a catalogue number, the first two digits of which indicate the year he acquired the work, in this case (19)66. The validity of this cataloguing system is supported by exhibition loans and publications documenting both Michel’s ownership of various items in the appropriate period as well as at least one item published in another collection prior to the date of Michel’s acquisition.

Provenance Information

Alfred Bush, 1958; given to the Princeton University Art Museum, 2016

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

Based on the results of provenance research, the Princeton University Art Museum can make an informed judgment that the object was outside its probable country of modern discovery before 1970. Alfred Bush acquired this object while participating in an archaeological expedition sponsored by the University Archaeological Society of Brigham Young University in 1958 at the site of Aguacatal, Campeche, Mexico. The museum has a photograph of Bush at the dig as well as copies of correspondence Bush composed from the field that were sent to project benefactors, demonstrating that he was indeed in this area in 1958.

Provenance Information

Purchased in Guatemala by Alfred Stendahl for (Stendahl Galleries, Los Angeles, California) between 1965 and 1972;{1} purchased by Dr. Wally and Brenda Zollman, Indianapolis, Indiana, around about 1980; purchased by Michael and Patricia McCrory, Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1998; given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields in 2017.

{1} Alfred Stendahl's collecting activities suggest he purchased the vase between 1965 and 1972. Photography of the vase at Stendahl Galleries dates to 1976.

Exhibition Information

The Face of Ancient America: The Wally and Brenda Zollman Collection of Pre-Columbian Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Noyes Gallery, December 03, 1988 to February 26, 1989

Publication Information

Published in the Exhibition Catalogue for 'The Face of Ancient America: The Wally and Brenda Zollman Collection of Pre-Columbian Art'

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

Cumulative facts and circumstances

Explain why the object fits the exception set forth above

The vase belonged to two collectors who have been involved with the IMA for decades. It has appeared in exhibitions and publications by renown archaeologists, Michael D. Coe and Lee Parsons. The object’s provenance in the United States goes back to at least 1972, per the report prepared by the law office of Kate Fitz Gibbon, which states that Stendahl Galleries records indicate acquisition of the vase between 1965 and 1972. It has been on loan to the IMA previously and was included in the IMA 1988 exhibition, “The Face of Ancient America: The Wally and Brenda Zollman Collection of Precolumbian Art,” and was illustrated in the accompanying catalogue.

Provenance Information

Probably by the 1950s or 1960s, and certainly by 1972 [see note], Vincent Price (b. 1911 – d. 1993) and Mary Grant Price (b. 1917 – d. 2002), Los Angeles; May 15, 2003, consigned by the estate of Vincent and Mary Price, Sotheby’s, New York, lot 233. May 15, 2015, anonymous (“private western collection”) sale, Sotheby’s, New York, lot 55, to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 24, 2015)

NOTE: Actor Vincent Price and his wife Mary built up an extensive art collection in the 1950s and 1960s. They divorced in 1974, after which Mrs. Price kept this object until her death in 2002. According to information provided by her estate to Sotheby’s, their collection had been formed by 1972. Handwritten notes supplied by Sotheby’s further suggest that this figure had been acquired by the 1960s.

Exhibition Information

None known.

Publication Information

None known.

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

The Vincent Price collection was built up in the 1950s and 1960s, which is very probably when this object was acquired.

Provenance Information

May, 1970 or May, 1971, sold by Stendahl Galleries, Los Angeles, to a private collector, Los Angeles [see note]; November 18-20, 2000, anonymous private collector sale, Sotheby’s, New York, lot 312, to Scott Gentling (d. 2011) and Stuart Gentling (d. 2006), Fort Worth, TX; November 12, 2014, consigned by the Gentling estate, Bonhams, New York, lot 60, sold to the MFA. (Accession Date: January 28, 2015)

NOTE: According to this previous owner, the vessel was acquired in May, 1970. Information supplied by the auction houses that sold the piece suggest that it was acquired in May, 1971.

Exhibition Information

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 1983-December 1984 (unconfirmed).

Publication Information

None known.

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

According to the previous owner, the vessel was acquired in May, 1970. Information supplied by the auction houses that sold the piece suggest that it was acquired in May, 1971. Even if it was the latter date, given the sale early in the year, it is reasonable to assume that object was in the United States already by the end of 1970.