Collection Highlights:
Art from Mesoamerica

August 28-October 18, 1998

North Coast Peru, Vicus Culture
(AD 300-700).
Llama Effigy Vessel.
Ceramic, 5 x 11 x 3 1/4"
Collection Bayly Art Museum

For years, the Bayly Art Museum's single largest collection -- Pre-Columbian art -- has waited patiently in the wings, so to speak, on storage shelves far from the public's view. Now, thanks to a grant from the Museum Loan Network, visiting scholar Dorie Reents-Budet surveyed this roughly 2000 piece collection over the summer and selected some of its finest ceramics for a long overdue exhibition.

Art from Mesoamerica shows the remarkable richness of imagery in Classic Maya (AD 250-850) painted vessels from throughout the Maya lowlands of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Included as well are pottery figures from the Pre-Classic and Classic shaft tomb culture of West Mexico. Male, female, and animal figures represent characteristic styles from Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima.

Based at M.I.T., the Museum Loan Network, among its many services, provides grants to museums to identify and conserve objects in their collections that are then made available on long-term loan to other museums. Works in the current exhibition, along with others identified by Dr. Reents-Budet, may one day find temporary homes in other museums around the country.  

Images and Text Copyright, 1997
The Rector and Visitors
of the University of Virginia
Charlottesville

Bayly Art Museum
University of Virginia, Rugby Road
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
804-924-3592