Colima Figure of a Contortionist, Comala Style, Protoclassic, circa 100 BC - AD 250

Edward H. Merrin, New York
Gray and Patsy R. Taylor, Greenwich, acquired from the above on February 24, 1971

The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Life, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Mexico, April 19 - November 3, 1991
The Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, September 5, 1998 - November 22, 1998; additional venue: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 20, 1998 - March 29, 1999

Richard F. Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, Chicago, 1998, p. 30, fig. 23, cat. no. 22

The acrobat vessels are tour de force ceramic compositions. The contortionist was an important ritual performer in village events, perhaps signifying mythological "diving" and underworld travel, as much as a providing a form of entertainment. Acrobat figures were made as small solid figurines in the early Protoclassic, and continued into the Mixtec Postclassic period.

This figure is closely related to the acrobat figure, sold at Replica Shoes ’s, New York, May 7, 2016, lot 132 (illustrated in Richard F. Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, Chicago, 1998, p. 30, fig. 24, cat. no. 23).