235 - Deep cut decorated with a frieze of six fantastical animals in the so-called “Draconiano” style. On the interior, geometric patterns near the rim; the base is decorated with a human head, the hair falling down the sides, parted in the center by a hairpin; a series of parallel lines beneath the eyes.

Deep cut decorated with a frieze of six fantastical animals in the so-called “Draconiano” style. On the interior, geometric patterns near the rim; the base is decorated with a human head, the hair falling down the sides, parted in the center by a hairpin; a series of parallel lines beneath the eyes. Polychrome pottery in dark and light brown, with red on a beige background. Diameter: 19.5 cm Argentina, Northwestern Andes, Calchaqui Valley, Aguada Culture, 500–1000 CE (Restored after breakage and re-glueing) Provenance: Henri Reichlen Collection, Paris Louis Carré Collection, Paris Hôtel Drouot, Loudmer, Louis Carré Collection and Library, June 27, 1985, lot no. 107. Hôtel Drouot, Loudmer, December 7, 1995, lot no. 66. Private collection, Brussels Passed down through the family Henri Reichlen (1914–2000) was a man of the field—an archaeologist, ethnologist, anthropologist, and linguist—and, above all, a leading expert on pre-Columbian America. He was also a man of the museum. Fascinated by artifacts, he significantly enriched France’s cultural heritage by donating archaeological and ethnographic collections to the Americas Department of the Museum of Man’s Ethnology Laboratory. He also donated objects to the museum’s other non-European departments, often acquired at auctions, which he frequented regularly. Louis Carré (1897–1977). A dealer in gold and silverware and later in modern and classical art, Louis Carré discovered Primitive Art as early as 1930 alongside Charles Ratton and served as a specialist dealer and expert, notably for the sale of the Breton-Eluard collection in 1931. He opened his eponymous gallery on Avenue de Messine in Paris in 1938 and exhibited works by Paul Klee, Juan Gris, and Le Corbusier, among others, followed by Soulages, Lanskoy, and Gromaire.