Hanging head of a jaguar. Mixteca, Mexico, 1200 - 1551 AD. Jade. 5.5 cm length, 4 cm height and 3.5 cm width. CONDITION: Good condition. PROVENANCE: - Collection of the pioneer collector Charles Eugène Espéridion Goupil, 1831-1895. - Private collection, Michel Vinaver, French writer and playwright (Paris, 1927-2022). Collection established between 1954/55 and 1965 by Michel Vinaver and his brother and registered in France in an inventory carried out on June 21, 1977 by Mr. Paul Brunet, French customs expert. - To their children, Anouk, Barbara, Delphine and Ivan Vinaver, 2022. - French art market, 2022. DESCRIPTION: Zoomorphic pendant carved in jadeite in a round shape, representing the head of an animal with its mouth open showing its tongue, large circular eyes and rounded ears, small and drawn back. The carving work is exquisite, with resounding volumes despite the small format of the piece. The shapes of the animal skull are clearly seen, tightening the skin around the eyes. Also the ears, soft in appearance, are worked with naturalism and even a certain movement. The snout is thick and rounded, with differentiated lips, a rounded lower jaw and a nose that protrudes slightly from the profile, rounded at the end. The open mouth shows the tongue, something common in Mixtec animal representations . The eyes are, however, completely abstract: round and hollow-carved, with flat pupils in relief. The pendant has two holes in its upper back, through which a string would be passed to hang it from the neck. The animal's features lead one to think that it is the image of a jaguar, although these animals were rarely represented without teeth. In a room at the Metropolitan Museum (fig. 1), with snakes with jaguar heads, an anatomical scheme very similar to that of the piece under study is observed, easily visible given that it is a simple relief worked on two planes. Other more complex representations of the same animal, such as those made in ceramics (fig. 2), also show features such as rounded ears or a distinct tongue, which protrudes from the mouth. The miniatures of the codices also offer examples of the formal conventions that identify the image of the jaguar: the rounded lip, the distinct nose, the small skull, the shape of the ears, the tongue and the large circular eyes (fig. 3). The Mixtecs considered the jaguar a sacred animal, a link with their main god, Ñuhu . Dasavui , deity of rain, water and thunder. They related the feline to the mythical origin of the lineage of their rulers, and many of them had the term jaguar in their name, like the famous king and conqueror 8 Jaguar's Claw Deer. The green stone was considered sacred in Mesoamerica, associated with water, fertility and life, as well as with the preservation of the agricultural cycle. Among these stones, the most appreciated was jadeite, considered more valuable than gold. It was reserved for the adornment of gods and kings, and even the latter could only wear it on certain occasions. Considered a symbol of life and purity, jade was especially used for the production of jewelry pieces, among which pendants stood out for allowing greater clarity in figurative representations. Jadeite pendants were therefore highly prized objects, loaded with symbolic and religious meaning and only exhibited by the most powerful members of society. It can be deduced therefore that, judging by the theme and the material used, the pendant under study is probably an object with magical-religious characteristics. Both the jaguar and jadeite were associated by the Mixtecs with water and life, so it would have been an object of great symbolic power, as is the case with a similar pendant, made of green rock crystal, preserved in Madrid (fig . 4). The Mixtec civilization, or wildebeest savi , has its origin around the year 1500 BC in the Mixteca Alta region, a mountainous area located in the current Mexican state of Oaxaca. These first population groups will extend until they reach the Mixteca de la Costa (coastal region of Oaxaca), and the north and west of the semi-arid zone around the borders of the states of Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero, called the Mixteca Baja. . It was a unique civilization, which exerted a notable influence on neighboring peoples and developed one of the main writing systems of Mesoamerica in the Postclassic period. It was also one of the longest- lived cultures in the Mesoamerican panorama, with significant socio-political and economic development already occurring in the Mixteca from the year 200 BC. During the Classic period (200-900 AD) Mixtec culture experienced unprecedented growth and development. More than one hundred settlements are known from this period in the Nochixtlán valley alone , including large cities with important ceremonial centers, ball fields, plazas and temples. The residential areas show a society with a complex hierarchy, and some of the richest tombs preserve important painted murals. The increase in population in these centuries made improvements in agricultural production necessary, which led to the development of sophisticated irrigation systems, vertical integration of different microclimates and the lama-bordo, one of the most unusual agricultural technologies in the world, which uses controlled erosion to carry moist, fertile soil from mountain slopes to terraced crop fields. The best-known period of Mixtec culture is that of the Postclassic kingdoms, which spans from the collapse of the urban centers of the Classic period (c. 800 AD) to the conquest of the region by the Spanish in the 1520s. During During these seven centuries, Mixtec rulers protected and encouraged the arts and writing, and manuscripts were produced that document their genealogies, religious beliefs, and mythology. Among the Mixtec artistic production of the Postclassic, delicate pieces of jewelry, small stone and bone carvings of great complexity, polychrome ceramics and illuminated manuscripts stand out. Less interested in monumental architecture than their neighbors, they concentrated their efforts on works of art of enormous quality and technical complexity, with geometric language and vividly colored. BIBLIOGRAPHY: - DAHLGREN DE JORDÓN, B. La Mixteca: Su cultura e historia prehispánica. Cultura Mexicana. 1954. - EVANS, S.T.; WEBSTER, D.L. Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. 2000. - KOWALEWSKI, S.A. et. al. Origins of the Ñuu. Archaeology in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico. University Press of Colorado. 2009. - MONAGHAN, J. The Covenant with Earth and Rain: Exchange, Sacrifice and Revelation in Mixtec Sociality. University of Oklahoma Press. 1995. PARALLELS: Fig. 1 Pendant with feline-headed snakes. Mixteca, s. XII-XIV, green stone. Metropolitan Museum , New York, inv. 1978.412.117. Fig. 2 Vase in the shape of a jaguar head. Mixteca, s. IX-XV, polychrome ceramics. National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, inv. 07.0-01056. Fig. 3 Illustration from the Zouche-Nuttall Codex . Mixtec, 1200-1521, deer skin. British Museum , London, inv. Am1902 ,0308.1. Fig. 4 Pendant in the shape of a jaguar head. Mixtec, 1200-1520, rock crystal. Museum of America, Madrid, inv. 02674. Notes: - The piece includes authenticity certificate. - The piece includes Spanish Export License (Passport for European Union) - If the piece is destined outside the European Union a substitution of the export permit should be requested, can take between 1-2 weeks maximum. - The seller guarantees that he acquired this piece according to all national and international laws related to the ownership of cultural property. Provenance statement seen by Catawiki.