The Power of Jade: The Charismatic Olmec “Standing Figure” at the Kimbell Art Museum

Scholars and collectors have long been interested in the collection—and destruction—of pre-Hispanic works of Mexico in the wake of the Spanish invasion of the Americas, from the melting of sacred objects considered idolatrous to the acquisition of curiosities by elite Europeans. The picture changed at the end of the eighteenth century, when Spanish soldiers excavated the first surviving major Aztec sculptures, and then more dramatically after Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821, when European and American travelers, as well as foreign emissaries, journeyed to Mexico and began to discover the wealth of pre-Hispanic works. This lecture will examine the growth of collections from this moment onward, with particular focus on charismatic objects that have spawned research for two centuries. One such object is the Kimbell’s stunning jade sculpture, fashioned three thousand years ago, an attestation of the visual capacity of the ancient Mesoamerican cultures to master material and meaning.