The figure with its arms pressed to the body and hands clasping the rounded belly, the finely modeled face with full downturned lips showing teeth, fleshy cheeks and swelling lower lids against the narrowed eyes. Height 8.7 cm.
Provenance
Ivor Thord-Gray (b. Ivar Tord Hallström, 1875-1964) Swedish adventurer and military man active in Mexico and resident of USA for the majority of his lifetime. The stone figure was a gift to the current owner's father Sten G:son Hallström (1902-78) before 1964. Thence by descent. Letter from the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm dated 1979 confirms that they received information through Michael D. Cole at Yale that the figurine is Olmec.
Exhibitions
Compare an olmec stone figure at Art Institute Chicage, Reference Number 1971.314.
Literature
I. Thord-Gray, 1960, Stockholm, 'Gringo bland rebeller', p. 223, description of the acquisition of statuettes in Tula de Allende, Mexico, 1913-14.
I. Thord-Gray, "Från Mexicos Forntid - Bland tempelruiner och gudabilder", Stockholm 1923.
More information
Ivor Thord-Gray was born in Stockholm in 1878 as Thord Ivar Hallström. At an early age, he went to sea and later changed his name to Ivor Thord-Gray in South Africa, where he joined the British Army. In addition to being an officer, he was also an ethnologist, linguist, and adventurer.
In 1913, Thord-Gray traveled to Mexico to take part in the revolution, where he became a colonel in the Mexican Army. In Mexico, he was known as “El Sueco” (“The Swede”). He developed a strong interest in Mexico’s prehistory, participated in archaeological excavations, and compiled a lexicon of the Tarahumara language.
In 1928, Thord-Gray donated a collection of prehistoric Mexican artifacts to the Ethnographic Museum in Gothenburg. Today, these objects are part of the collections of the Museum of World Culture, Sweden.
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