NAYARIT COUPLE. Pair of statues presenting a couple... Lot 8

NAYARIT COUPLE. Pair of statues presenting a couple of dignitaries, standing dressed for a ceremony. The woman's waist is covered with a skirt decorated with a grid pattern, temple steps and various symbols. She carries a potion container on her shoulder, one of her hands is directed towards the earth as a sign of blessing, her face displays a vigorous expression accentuated by an open mouth showing her teeth and eyes with a dynamic look. She wears numerous ornaments evoking her important status in the clan, an armband with ovoid beads, circular pendants on her ears and a nariguera in her nasal septum. Polychrome terracotta, chips on a finger and on the neck of the receptacle. The man's body is of powerful proportions in the attitude of a shaman holding his scepter of power on his shoulder, he wears a conical headdress, a loincloth around his waist with a pendant symbolizing a shell. Like the woman, his expression is marked perhaps by the effect of a powerful hallucinogen, his forehead is adorned with a crown with two jaguar legs and a circular diadem symbolizing his shamanic status. Polychrome terracotta. (Broken arms and scepter glued together). Nayarit, western Mexico, 100 BC to 250 AD. J-C. Dimensions (woman) : 30,3x19cm. Dimensions (man): 35.5x19cm. Provenance : old American collection constituted in the years 1970/1980.