Pre-Hispanic Art Provenance Initiative
Researching the international art market’s commodification of pre-Hispanic art and antiquities during the 19th and 20th centuries
Project Details
- Category
- Years 2019 – ongoing
- Status
- Organizer
![A man with white hair extends his hand over a table covered with ancient Mexican figurines.](https://media.getty.edu/iiif/image/8d4dee26-eea5-4482-a181-ff1b0d01f723/177,314,2315,1302/3000,/0/default.jpg)
Earl Stendahl with pre-Hispanic sculptures, ca. 1950. Getty Research Institute, 2017.M.38. Photo: Florence Homolka. Gift of April and Ronald Dammann
About
Goal
This initiative comprises the first systematic study of how pre-Hispanic art became an essential focus of collecting practices for museums and private collections across North America and Europe. It makes a foundational contribution to the study and preservation of Latin American cultural heritage by analyzing the looting, commodification, and circulation of pre-Hispanic material culture between the mid-19th and late-20th centuries.
Archives
Resources
News
- 2024
Talk
Collecting Mesoamerican Art in the Twentieth Century
- 2022
Talk
Collecting Mesoamerican Art, 1940–1968
- 2019
Talk
Collecting Mexican Art before 1940: A New World of American Antiquities
- 2019
Article
Research to Shed Light on 20th-Century Trade in Mexican Antiquities
- 2019
Talk
"Good Pieces in Sight": The US Market in Mesoamerican Antiquities circa 1940