Word: columbians
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...mystery of the island was merely the most spectacular recent example of something that occurs almost daily throughout Mexico. By law, not a single item of pre-Columbian culture may be unearthed without permission; no pre-Columbian object of any value may be taken out of the country. Yet the collector's yen for these objects is so insatiable that local dealers, anthropologists, private Mexican collectors have become smugglers to fill the pipelines to the U.S. and Europe...
Conquered & Collected. The fancy for pre-Columbian art dates back to the conquistadores. At first, only Europe's artists admired the primitive sculpture. Then, in 1867, when Maximilian's soldiers returned from Mexico with hundreds of figurines, the collectors' interest was piqued. One of the earliest finds was the famed stone statue of Goddess Tlazolteotl in the act of childbirth (see cut). A French collector first bought it for a few francs. Current owner: U.S. Collector Robert Woods Bliss, who has it insured...
...proportions that the government has all but given up hope of keeping Mexico's treasures at home. Some officials are collectors themselves-and not above turning a fast peso on a good piece. They make smuggling ridiculously easy. Reaching the border with a station wagon full of pre-Columbian art, ex-Jockey and Art-Quiz Whiz Billy Pearson was "prepared to start throwing money around." The customs man demanded only food. "For a case of chilis," wrote Pearson in his autobiography, "I got through the border...
...rich, image-decked style make this chronicle more than a theological teaser or a jigsaw puzzle about just which Biblical figure is lurking under what sombrero. Coccioli has achieved a mosaic of miniatures in which the state of Morelos is the Kingdom of Judaea, and in which the pre-Columbian pantheon is transfigured to decorate a Christian altarpiece. Coccioli has leaped over the two stumbling blocks-banality and blasphemy-that beset the path of those who would compete with the Evangelists. He speaks through the mouth of one of his characters, a scholar who has studied the case of Manuel...
...shape of a kneeling woman, a dog-shaped bowl, and African, American Indian and South Sea Island idols by the score comprised a wild little dream world within the Fine Arts' staid galleries of European pictures. Most exciting finds were the small gold ornaments from pre-Columbian...