164 - A TURQUOISE AND SHELL INLAID COPPER CEREMONIAL ‘HAND’ KNIFE, TUMI, MOCHE CULTURE, 1ST-3RD CENTURY

A TURQUOISE AND SHELL INLAID COPPER CEREMONIAL ‘HAND’ KNIFE, TUMI, MOCHE CULTURE, 1ST-3RD CENTURY Exhibited: Frieze, Collections 2017, 2 August 2017, London Peru. The flaring blade terminating to one end in a semi-circular cutting edge, the other end formed as a hand, each finger detailed with arrowhead lines and fingernails, the sides further inlaid in turquoise, spondylus shell, and mother-of-pearl, and fitted with a small loop below the middle finger. Provenance: Dr. Régis Lisfranc collection, Paris, France. Martin Doustar, Brussels, Belgium, acquired from the above. Dr. Régis Lisfranc (born c. 1933) was a distinguished Parisian orthopedic and hand surgeon and one of the founding members of the Institut de la Main in Paris. Alongside his medical career, he developed a remarkable passion for collecting art, particularly representations of the human hand. Over approximately 35 years he assembled some 300 works from France and abroad, encompassing Asian art, European paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings and decorative arts. His collection, renowned for its highly personal and scholarly focus on the motif of the hand, was dispersed at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, on 20 March 2017. Martin Doustar is a Brussels-based art dealer and collector whose career spans more than two decades. He began his professional journey in the early 2000s with a focus on Modern Art, developing a keen interest in the ways early twentieth-century artists were influenced by ‘primitive’ art from Africa and Oceania. Over time, his connoisseurship expanded into archaeological and ethnographic fields, with particular expertise in the ancient arts of the Pacific, Africa, and pre-Columbian America, while also encompassing Asian material culture and modern masterpieces. He is the author of numerous scholarly catalogs and has organized thematic exhibitions on a wide range of subjects. Condition: Good condition, commensurate with age. Extensive wear, signs of weathering and erosion, corrosion, traces of prolonged burial, and losses to the inlays. The knife displaying a fine, naturally grown patina with malachite encrustations. Weight: 194 g (excl. stand), 339 (incl. stand) Dimensions: Length 16.6 cm (excl. stand), Height 21.5 cm (incl. stand) With an associated modern stand. (2) The Moche (also known as the Mochicas) flourished between 200 and 900 BC, centuries before the rise of the Inca. Over the course of some seven centuries the Moche built thriving regional centers from the Nepeña River Valley in the south to perhaps as far north as the Piura River, near the modern border with Ecuador, developing coastal deserts into rich farmlands and drawing upon the abundant maritime resources of the Pacific Ocean’s Humboldt Current. The Moche people were among the first to use copper, often with the addition of arsenic to harden the metal and improve the quality of the cast. Moche metalworkers hammered most of their precious metals into objects of sheet metal, but many works in copper were cast by the lost-wax technique. Tumi (Quechua for 'knife') is a generic term encompassing the many kinds of sharp tools utilized in pre- and post-colonial eras of the Central Andes region. These knifes were employed for a diverse set of purposes including as kitchen knives, agricultural tools, secondary weapons of warriors and hunters, sacrificial knives, pendants, and medical tools. Literature comparison: Compare a closely related copper hand knife, Moche culture, dated 1 st-3 rd century, 23.5 cm long, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, object number 1986.199. Auction result comparison: Type: Related Auction: Christie’s New York, 23 May 2007, lot 8 Price: USD 12,000 or approx. EUR 17,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Description: Mochica copper tumi, ca. A.D. 200 – 500 Expert remark: Compare the similar form, the inlays, and size (17.2 cm).