Word: pre-columbian
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...well as names, the Frank Perls Gallery in Beverly Hills was selling a $30 Picasso ceramic ashtray. A somewhat older artifact - an Egyptian cosmetic palette from 3000 B.C. - was available for $280 at Manhattan's Komor Gallery. And the nearby Judith Small Gallery offered a large array of pre-Columbian sculpture, including, at $100, some Mexican fertility figures so tiny that 50 would fit in a Christmas stocking...
...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...
...such 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...
...latest wrinkle in the trade was all but inevitable. With everyone scrambling for pre-Columbian art, local Indians have learned to copy the originals handed to them by dealers, are selling fakes to gullible tourists as fast as they can make them. And some are so well done that even the art dealers get clipped on an occasional imitation Mayan...