Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art
about 5 months ago (12/14/2023)
Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Museums & Heritage news Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art The jade statuette of an Olmec ruler holding a baby were-jaguar will be exhibited as the centrepiece of the Texas museum's ancient American collection Theo Belci 14 December 2023 Share Standing Figure Holding a Were-Jaguar Baby (around 900BC-300BC) Photo: Justin Kerr., courtesy of the Justin Kerr Maya archive, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has acquired Standing Figure Holding a Were-Jaguar Baby (around 900BC-300BC), a jade statuette at the centre of Olmec civilisation studies since the mid-20th century. The acquisition celebrates the tenth anniversary of the museum’s Renzo Piano pavilion, where the figure will be exhibited as the centrepiece of the institution’s ancient American collection. Following the statuette’s first modern documentation by a Mexican priest in 1829, it travelled to Paris as an heirloom of the aristocratic Chasseloup-Laubat family.