Cigar Smoker

Artist: Unknown

100 B.C.–A.D. 300

Art of the Ancient Americas

By appointment, Wurtele Study Center

Glorious swirls of body paint suggest tobacco smoke on this figure, who puffs on a cigar. His obese body is abstracted into simple rounded forms. Focused on his smoking, he settles into a state of calm.

Medium

Ceramic, with resist painting

Dimensions

11 × 4 5/8 × 7 5/16 in. (27.94 × 11.8 × 18.5 cm)

Credit Line

Richard Brown Baker, B.A. 1935, Collection

Accession Number

2008.19.1275

Geography

Mexico

Culture

Mexico, Colima

Period

Protoclassic Period

Classification

Sculpture

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Bibliography
  • "Acquisitions, July 1, 2007–June 30, 2008," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2008), 183, ill
  • Richard F. Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1998),
  • Helen Pollard, "Recent Research in West Mexican Archaeology," Journal of Archeological Research 5 (1997),
  • R. Tripp Evans, "Navigating the Afterlife: Two Shaft Tomb Figures from Ancient West Mexico," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (1995–96), 32, fig. 4
  • Michael Kan, Clement W. Meighan, and Henry B. Nicholson, Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico: Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, 2, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989),
  • Jacki Gallagher, Companions of the Dead: Tomb Sculpture from Ancient West Mexico, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 1983),
  • Isabel Kelly, "Seven Colima Tombs: An Interpretation of Ceramic Content," Studies in Ancient Mesoamerica 3 (1978), 1–26
  • Betty Bell, ed., The Archaeology of West Mexico (Ajijic, Mexico: West Mexican Society for Advanced Study, 1974),
  • Peter T. Furst, West Mexican Art: Secular or Sacred? The Iconography of Middle American Sculpture (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973), 98–133
  • Salvador Toscano and Federico Canessi, Arte Precolombino del Occidente de Mexico (Mexico City: Dirección General de Educación Extra-Escolar y Estética, 1946),
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

human figures (visual works), sculptures

Subject

hollow

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