From Calicut to America

Reprinted from: Jochen Sander (ed.), Albrecht Dürer. His Art in Context (München 2013: Prestel). — CHRISTIAN FEEST — From Calicut to America: Albrecht Dürer and the “wondrous artificial things” from the “new golden land” O n 12 July 1520 Albrecht Dürer embarked upon a voyage to Flanders from which he was to return only more than a year later. The seasoned traveler Dürer may not have been astonished by the fact that between Nuremberg and Cologne he had to present no less than thirty-seven times the custom bond issued for him by the bishop of Bamberg, but it illustrates the prevailing fragmentation of the world at a time that, from a present-day point of view, is seen as an important period of globalization including the emergence of a new conception of the world and of the foundations of new world (economic) order. The hitherto customary flat maps that only recently started to curve themselves into a globe, which the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magallan was at that very moment proceeding to circumnavigate. In this process, it also finally became apparent that America was a separate continent and not merely an appendage of India. However, as recently as 1512, the Nuremberg humanist Johannes Cochlaeus, an acquaintance of Dürer and tutor of Willibald Pirckheimer’s children, in his commentary on the geographer Pomponius Mela’s Cosmographia had opined that irrespective of whether the discovery of a New World affirmed by Amerigo Vespucci was the truth or merely a lie, it had nothing to do with cosmography or historical knowledge: “For the people and places of these lands are as yet to us unknown and unnamed, thither there are also no navigations, except under many dangers: thus they are of no concern for the geographers.”1 The records kept by Dürer on his trip through Flanders are primarily devoted to the daily expenses and incomes, the gifts madeand received, as well as to the enumeration of his dining companions. The intervening descriptions of places and events clearly speak for the author’s capacity for enthusiasm. Many of the things he saw he regarded as “precious,” others as “more then precious,” and some even as “the like of which I have never seen in all German lands.”2 This has to be taken into consideration when reading the master’s frequently-cited report about his inspection on 27 August 1520 of the objects exhibited in Brussels, which had been sent in the previous year from Mexico by Hernán Cortés to the future emperor Charles V:3 “Also have I seen the things, that one has brought to the king from the new golden land: a fully golden sun, a full fathom wide, likewise a fully silver moon, also thus large, likewise two chambers full of suchlike equipment [rüstung], likewise of all kinds of their weapons, harness, ordnance [geschucz], marvelous defenses [wehr, i.e., probably shields], strange clothing, bedding and all kinds of marvelous things for each and every use, that there is more beautiful to look at than marvels. These things have all been costly, that one has valued them at hundred thousand gulden worth. And yet I have all days of my life seen nothing that has thus delighted my heart as these things. For I have seen among them wondrous artificial things [wunderliche künstliche ding] and have wondered at the subtle ingenia of the people in foreign lands. And the things that I have had there I do not know how to express.”4 Without even a new paragraph the text continues: “I have seen besides in Brussels many beautiful things, and in particular I have seen there a big fish bone as if it had been built with building blocks,” Immediately preceding Dürer’s praise of the Mexican artifacts we find the passage: “I have seen in the king’s house in Brussels [and] looking out into the back the springs, labyrinth, menagerie, that I have never seen more pleasant things, more agreeable to me, like a paradise”.5 In the past, Dürer’s text has generally been explained as an expression of a spontaneous insight, well ahead of the times, into the aesthetic qualities of works of art from an alien world. A more critical view, however, shows that Dürer’s response to the unexpected encounter with the objects from a “golden land” still of no concern for the geographers was far from unique, and that in particular it cannot be interpreted as an artistic appreciation in a later sense.6 Dürer indeed uses the word “art” [kunst] exclusively for the commercial products of his (and other “artists”) skills and not for the modern abstract concept of “art,” which has emerged since the sixteenth century in connection with the social valuation of the formal rarity or uniqueness of things.7 Although Dürer qualifies his description of the Mexican objects by calling them “more beautiful to look at than marvels,” by referring to them as “marvelous,” “wonderful,” “strange,” and “precious,” he nevertheless places them into the category of “wondrous artificial things,” that is to say, those artificial curiosities that, together with unusual products of nature, constituted the focus of collecting in the Kunst- and Wunderkammern. The two large “suns.” disks of gold and silver, also received special attention in the descriptions left by other contemporary observers, both because of their size and value—along with the 367 For a painter, speechlessness may be less dramatic than the inability to draw an image. Various commentators have thus been surprise by the fact that Dürer was not left us any drawings of the “wondrous things.” But neither “haphophobia”9 nor the lack of opportunity to make sketches in the context the exhibition10 could have been the cause for this omission. During his stay in Flanders, Dürer did indeed acquire through purchase or gift a number of exotic artifacts, including a “calacuttan wooden shield,” “several feathers, calecuttan things,” “2 calecuttan ivory salt bottles,” and a “small calecuttan target, made of fish skin.”In the early sixteenth century, the German word Kalikutisch [“Calicuttan”] was a synonym for “Indian” and—until the continental nature of America was recognized—akso for “American.” Kalikutisch was derived from the old designation Kalikut [“Calicut”] for the present-day Kozhikode, in the Indian federal state of Kerala, the city in which Vasco da Gama landed in 1498, thus opening up direct trade with India. Since Dürer’s sketchbook of his travels in the Low Countries has been preserved only in a fragmentary form,11 it cannot be completely ruled out that it may have included sketches of Mexican objects. There is a penand-ink drawing of the view, described above, of the menagerie as seen from the castle (cat. no. 14.8), while a depiction of the fish bone was included in the last original of the travel diary.12 A pen-and-ink wash drawing attributed to Hans Burgkmair does indeed show a Mexican turquoise mosaic shield, whose design corresponds to an item presently preserved in the Weltmuseum Wien in Vienna13 that is traceable to the 1596 inventory of the Ambras collection of Archduke Ferdinand II; many such shields appears on the list of objects sent by Cortés to Charles V and was probably to be seen in Brussels in 1520 (cf. fig. 82). The wooden sword armed with flakes of obsidian shown in this drawing is also doubtlessly of Mexican origin, while the feather headdress corresponds to a type widely distributed in Brazil. On a second drawing in the same hand (see fig. 86)14 both the “anchor ax” (cat. no. 15.2) and the headdress are Brazilian; the provenance of the feather skirts and the necklace worn by the two figures (and of the shoulder ornament in figure 82) cannot be determined; furthermore, they may be not be represented according to their to their original use. That the Americans artifacts are being worn by Africans shows that these are not portraits but compositions. A sojourn by Burgkmair in Brussels, however, cannot be demonstrated, and is equally unlikely as his visit of the other places where the shield is known to have been kept between 1519 and Burgkmair’s death in 1531 (Sevilla and Valladolid in 1519, and Mechelen after 1523). Since there is no indication that Brazilian objects were also to be seen in any of these locations, the drawings must be compositions from sketches made in different places and probably also by different persons. That Dürer could have been a source for Burgkmair as far as the Mexican items are concerned can be neither documented, nor excluded. There are in fact indications pointing to earlier cross-connections in the iconography of the exotic between Dürer, Burgkmair, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Jörg Breu, in which Burgkmair held a central position.In 1512, Emperor Maximilian I dictated to his secretary the description of a triumphal procession in his own honor, which was to be executed as a series of woodcuts by prominent artists. At the very end of this train, as Maximilian had imagined it, was to appear a group of “Calicuttan people”: “Also after this there should be a man from Calicut on horseback carrying a signboard with a rhyme and wearing a laurel wreath ... Behind this should be walking the Calicuttan people. (...They are all naked and dressed as Indians or alla morescha.) All of them should also Fig. 82 Hans Burgkmair,”Indian” with Aztec shield and wooden sword, London, The British Museum techniques used in their manufacture, which may have particularly impressed Dürer, the skilled goldsmith (see cat. nos. 15.5–7). In other ways as well, Dürer’s choice of words hardly differs from other accounts, including those by the conqueror Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Hernán Cortés’s secretary Francisco López de Gómara, the apostle of the Indies Bartolomeo de las Casas, the chronicler Petrus Martyr de Angleria, and the Venetian ambassador at the court of Charles V, Gasparo Contarini. Almost all of them describe the things as “subtle,” “artificial,” and “beautiful,” some also as “wonderful.” Las Casas thought “that they appeared to be a dream and not made of human hands,” which had caused all observers “to be equally surprised and delighted to the highest degree.” And much like Dürer, Martyr was left speechless when faced with the “ingenuity” (“which to describe I do not understand”). When, in spite of this impediment, details were described, the interpretations of the European observers differed widely: on the huge disk of gold Las Casas saw a sun entwined by foliage, Martyr a king seated on a throne, the anonymous author of a broadside of 1520 a squatting woman surrounded by wild animals, whereas the packing list of the object shipped from Mexico refers to the figures as “monsters.” Thus the speechlessness turns out to be caused by the lack of appropriate categories in the attempt to grasp the alien other.8 368 Fig. 83 Hans Burgkmair,”Calicuttan people,” folio 130 be wearing the laurel wreath.”15 Based on this the ends of the “Calicuttan” swords (cat. of the Triumphal Procession of Maximilian I text, a series of now-lost drawungs made by no. 15.1). Although there is no sufficient addiFrankfurt am Main, Städel Museum Jörg Kölderer served as a guideline for 109 tional evidence for the shape of the feather miniature paintings executed in the workshop skirts in particular, the clubs, radial feather of Albrecht Altdorfer, with the “Calicuttan people” occupying folio 107: crowns, and perhaps the feather bonnets were obviously drawn from four rows of partly bearded men dressed in non-specific feather garactually existing artifacts, while the bows and arrows offer at least ments (crowns, skirts, garters), and sandals, and armed with round no reason for distrust. The majority of the figures (except for two shields and swords, one of them ending in an oval disk, lances and Brazilian women among them) populating folio 131 and their ethnobows. The leader’s horse is likewise decorated with feather ornagraphic details can be traced to the representations of Africans made ments.16 by Burgkmair for Springer.20 These miniatures provided the model for 139 in part markedly For the feather skirts and crowns there is, however, yet another modified woodcuts, some of which were contributed by Dürer. About visual document dating from 1515: a rather coarse woodcut illustration half of them, however, were based on drawings by Hans Burgkmair, by Jörg Breu for German edition of the itinerary by Lodovico di including folios 129 to 131 showing the people of Calicut, which were Varthema on his voyage to India and the adjacent islands (fig. 84).21 probably cut in 1518, although the drawings appear to have been finThis image, which is embedded into a passage dealing with Sumatra ished by 1515.17 Folio 129, showing the vanguard of the Calicuttan diviwithout being clearly related to it, displays a mixture of Oriental feasion, follows the painting in broad outline, but has the leader wearing tures (such as a turban) and South American featherwork, some of a turban and sitting astride an elephant accompanied by a drummer, which (like the neck, arm, and leg ornaments) were derived from the whereas the rank and file are wearing loincloths and laurel wreaths Augsburg broadside of 1505 reporting on Vespucci’s discoveries.22 The instead of the feather garments and are partly armed with bows and American features in the Asian context find a certain justification in the arrows instead of the shields and swords. Two of the unusual (and assumption prevailing at the time that the western islands discovered unlikely) swords with oval ends are also shown; they are clearly derived by Columbus and other voyagers were located just off the coast of (like the loincloths and a pole arm featured on folio 130) from a woodIndia. cut showing the King of Gutzin (Cuchin, today: Kochi) living “xxxx [40] Especially striking and unusual is a long staff with a cylindrical ornamiles beyond Calicut,” which Burgkmair had produced in 1508 as an ment surmounted by three feathers at its upper end. This staff takes us illustration for a preprint of the report describing the voyage to India back to Dürer and the only work in which he made use of American undertaken in 1505/06 at the request of the Welsers by the Tyrolean18 material: one of his marginal drawings in the Prayer Book of Maximi‐ merchant Balthasar Springer.19 lian I (fig. 85). It shows a young man with European features wearing Folio 130 of the Triumphal Procession (fig. 83), however, features feather clothing, standing on an upturned ladle, a round shield and his representations of indubitably American things, among them Brazilian left hand and his right, a long staff whose cylindrical top is also made radial feather crowns (some of them combined with feather bonnets), of feathers. Together with an Oriental man leading a camel on the folfeather skirts, and, most significantly, the wooden clubs typical for the lowing page, this figure illustrates the first verse of Psalm 34: “Domini Tupinamba of eastern Brazil, whose distal end was indeed shaped like est terra, et plenitudo ejus[,] orbis terrarum, et universi qui habitant in 369 Fig. 84 Jörg Breu, illustration in Ludovico di Varthema, eo” (“The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fulness, baffling experience, albeit one that, in the Die Ritterlich und lobwirdig rayß (Augsburg, 1515) The world and those who cdwell therein”), thus long term, was not to manifest itself in his Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München explicitly including the dwellers at the newly œuvre.29 The people and places in the “new found (Calicuttan) margins of the earth. golden land”—unnamed and unknown—reWhile the ladle may well be European, the shield probably Asian, mained inaccessible to his own experience and thus were thus, at best, and the sandals generic23—making it impossible to identify the origin of marginal concern for the artist. of the latter—the featherwork is obviously based on the study of orig1 Cochlaeus 1512, fol. F verso–F ii recto. In his commentary on Mela, published inals also represented in the works of Burgkmair, Altdorfer, and Breu. in 1518, the Swiss humanist Joachim Vadianus offered an opposite point of The feather skirt shows technical details not represented in other view based upon a different evaluation of the relationship between the trust images; Burgkmair shows the feather bonnet only in combination with 24 toward the authorities of antiquity and the body of experiences of modern the radial crown (and thus cannot be seen in its entirety); finally, the travelers (Vogel 1992, pp. 90–91). neck and upper arm ornaments are reminiscent of those featured in 2 For the German original, see Rupprich, I, pp. 151–52. the broadside of 1505 but are executed in a more convincing manner. 3 On the history of these objects, which included the gifts for the guest made For the staff, which is often referred to as a scepter (although much by Moctezuma to Cortés and which had previously been put on display in too long for such as purpose), no comparative evidence is availSevilla and Valladolid, see Feest, 1990, pp. 33–48. In 1523, a substantial 25 able. But Dürer’s representation is so meticulous that it permits the number of these objects came as a gift from Charles V. to his sister Margaidentification of the technique as the one also found on Tupinamba rete’s collection in Mechelen (Zimmermann 1885, pp. CXIX–CXX). clubs and axes (cat. nos. 15.1–2, fig. 83). Quite obviously, it is the same 4 For the German original, see Rupprich, I, p. 155. artifact as seen on Breu’s woodcut (fig. 84) and which, with a measure 5 For the German original, see Rupprich, I, p. 155. of goodwill, can also be recognized in the background of Christ with 6 A more extensive discussion of the reception of the quotation from Dürer Crown of Thorns on Altdorfer’s Sebastianaltar, which was made and of the observations of his contemporaries may be found in Feest 1992a, between 1509 and 1515.28 pp. 105–120; Feest 1992b, resp. Feest 1996. The works of Dürer, Burgkmair, Altdorfer, and Breu from about 7 On this subject, see especially Alsop 1981. 1512 to 1515 reflect in an appropriate manner the notion then current 8 For further details, see Feest 1992a, pp. 120–23. of the “people of Calicut,” who could be reached from Europe both in 9 Schneider 1987, p. 144. an eastward and westward direction, and of their marginal position in 10 Nowotny 1960, p. 17. the European worldview. The iconography of the “Calicuttans” was 11 Edmund Schilling, Albrecht Dürer. Niederländisches Reiseskizzenbuch 1520– nourished by the access to objects27 from the east coast of Brazil, 1521, Frankfurt am Main 1928. which at this point of time had obviously been brought to southern 12 For the German original, see Rupprich, I, p. 184, note 196. Germany from Portugal and to which the artist had direct and/or indi13 Feest 2012, pp. 104–110. rect access.29 Not until Magallan’s circumnavigation of the globe did 14 For both drawings, see Halm 1962, pp. 125–29; exh. cat. London 1988, pp. the continental nature of Americas enter the European consciousness, 187–188, plate XXIII. resulting in the shaping of a separate image of its “Indian” population, 15 Schestag 1883, p. 172;Winzinger 1972–73, II, p. 39. a development aided by the first brush with an American civilization: 17 Winzinger 1966, pp. 157–72; Winzinger 1972–73, I, p. 57, vol. II, p. 57; exh. cat. the conquest of Mexico. For Dürer and his contemporaries the enVienna 2012–13, pp. 224-33; no. 53. See Honour 1975, pp. 18–19; Sturtevant 1976, 420–22, fig. 3; Colin 1988, p. 333; also Stanley Applebaum (ed.), counter with the Mexican treasures proved to be an equally strong and 370 The Triumph of Maximilian I. 137 Woodcuts by Hans Burgkmair and Others, New York, 1984. 17 Schestag 1883, pp. 176, 179. 18 On 30 March 1507, Maximilian I cleared the payment for various services rendered by the Tyrolian artist Jörg Kölderer, including: “Also I have painted on paper 12 Calicuttan manikins” (Schönherr 1884, p. XXVIII). It is likely that these were drawings done after sketches or verbal descriptions supplied by Springer, who had recently returned home. It is possible that these drawings were known to Altdorfer and/or Burgkmair and had served as models for their representations of the “Calicuttans.” 19 McDonald 2003, pp. 227–244; and Leitch 2009, who justifiably celebrates these illustrations as the beginnings of a modern visual anthropology. 20 Hirschberg 1967, plates 2–5, 14/15; see McDonald 2003, and Leitch 2009. 21 Lodovico de Varthema, Die Ritterlich und lobwirdig rayß des gestrengen und über all ander weit erfarnen ritters und Lantfarers herrn Ludowico vartomans von Bolonia, Augsburg 1515, fol. p recto. See Colin 1988, p. 191. 22 Dise figur anzeigt vns das volck vnd insel die gefunden durch den christlichen kunig zu Portugal, illustrated, i.a., in Sturtevant 1976, p. 420, fig. 2, and Colin 1988, pp. 186–187, fig. 5 (“one of the earliest representations of South American Indians with some ethnographic precision”). 23 Sturtevant 1976, p. 423, points out a possible relationship of the sandals to those shown in Altdorfer’s miniatures of the Triumph (which in turn may be based upon Burgkmair’s image of a Hottentot (Khoikhoi) couple for Springer; see Hirschberg 1967, I, pp. 5, 14/15). His suggestion that the shield pattern could be based upon an Indian model is unfounded und probably erroneous. 24 This form is documented as a Tupinamba headdress by Joachim du Viert’s engraving Sauvages amenez en France pour estre instruits dans la Religion Catholique, qui furent baptisez a Paris en l’eglise de St. Paul le XVII juillet 1613, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Est. QB-1 (1613)-FOL (cp. Étienne-Théodore Hamy, Les Indiens de Rasilly: étude iconographique et ethnographique, in: Journal de la Société des Américanistes, n.s. 5 [1908], pp. 20–52, here pl. 1.) 25 The Munduruku feather scepters adduced for comparative purposes by Sturtevant 1976, pp. 423, 447) measure only a third of the length and were made in a completely different technique. 26 Winzinger 1966; Winzinger 1975, pp. 78–80. 27 Although American Indians had been carried to Europe since the days of Columbus, the first depictions after nature of inhabitants of the New World date only from 1528/29 when Christoph Weiditz made drawings of a group of Aztecs and Tlaxcaltecs brought to Spain (Hampe 1927; Cline 1969). 28 The claim that these objects were connected to those Tupinambas taken to France in 1505 (Honour 1975, p. 13) cannot be substantiated, whereas the trade relationships at that time between Augsburg and Nuremberg, respectively, and Portugal are well documented. 29 Dürer apparently took no notice of the Mexican objects brought to Nuremberg in 1524 (Nowotny 1960, pp. 25–27). No solid evidence has been presented to support the suggestion that Dürer’s 1527 plan of an ideal city had been influenced by the map of Tenochtilan published in 1524 in Nuremberg together with the second Cortés letter (Palm 1951, p. 65). Fig. 85 Albrecht Dürer, “Calicuttan” marginal drawing in the Prayer Book of Maximilian I, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München 371 — 15.1 15.2 — TUPINAMBA, BRAZIL PLATTER-HEADED CLUB 17th century, palm wood, plant fibers, feathers, length 126 cm, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammmlungen Dresden, Museum fur Völkerkunde Dresden, inv. no. 285 ANCHOR AX 16th century, palm wood, plant fibers, feathers, ostrich egg shells, length 65 cm, blade: 17x13.8 cm, Vienna, Weltmuseum Wien, Ambras Collection, possibly transferred from the Wiener Schatzkammer, inv. no. 10403 Tupinamba is a collective designation for a group of related tribes who, at the time of their first encounter with Europeans, inhabited the coastal regions of Brazil, from the state of Maranhao to Rio de Janeiro. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were in often hostile contact with Portuguese, French, and Dutch colonists and—also because of their cannibalism-had a decisive impact on the emergence of the early European image of “the American Indian.” Their typical products, which became coveted objects in the Kunst‐ and Wunder‐ kammern, included, in addition to featherwork, platter-head clubs measuring between 90 and 220 cm in length; the longest of these were used not for fighting, but for the killing of prisoners of war. While the majority of the thirteen examples that have survived in museums have round, platter-shaped heads, an example preserved in Dresden (cat. no.15.1), acquired for the “Indian chamber” of the elector of Saxony as late as 1652, features an elongated, oarshaped end and thus corresponds to the representation of the clubs of the “people of Calicut” in Hans Burgkmair’s woodcut 130 in the Triumphal Procession of Maximilian I (ca. 1515; fig. 83). Clearly recognizable in both cases is the decoration made of strings with attached bunches of feathers spirally wrapped around the shaft, which is also represented in one of Albrecht Dürer’s marginal drawings in the Prayer Book of Maximilian I (fig. 85). It is likewise found on an anchor ax (cat. no. 15.2) corresponding to the type shown in one of the drawings of around 1520 attributed to Burgkmair (see figs. 82, 86). The majority of these anchor axes originated with the Gespeaking peoples of central Brazil, and are characterized by an angular shaft, whereas four surviving examples with a straight shaft may be attributed to the Tupinamba. CF Literature Bujok 2003, esp. pp. 112–16. Fig. 86 Hans Burgkmair, “Indian” with anchor ax, London, The British Museum 372 373 — 15.3 15.4 — AZTEC, MEXICO PENDANT IN THE SHAPE OF A PARROT’S HEAD early 16th century Moss agate, mother-of-pearl, obsidian, 2.2 cm x l.4 cm x l.4 cm Vienna, Weltmuseum Wien, Ambras Collection, inv. no. 10406 PENDANT IN THE SHAPE OF A DUCK’S HEAD eariy16th century Amethyst, green silicate bedrock, 1.8 cm x 3.4 cm Vienna, Weltmuseum Wien, Ambras Collection, inv. no. 10407 If there were small pendants of stone or gold among the treasures sent by Cortes from Mexico to the Spanish crown and seen by Dürer in Brussels in 1520, they were probably parts of ensembles and could hardly have competed with the fascination emanating from the huge disks of precious metals, the turquoise mosaics, or the feather headdresses to which they may have been attached. This is also true of the two lapidary works from the sixteenth-century Ambras Collection, which were not even noted on inventories prior to 1880, because they were in all probability merely the remnants of artifacts that had lost their integrity and identity. Removed from their original context of use, they stand today as exemplary witnesses of ancient American artisanship and would also have been appreciated by Dürer. In 1520, observers would not likely have been aware of the fact that these objects had been manufactured without the use of iron tools and rotary motion, both of which were unknown in ancient America. Works of this quality were certainly the products of the workshops established at the royal courts, in which groups of craftsmen specialized in the processing of gold, stone, and feathers collaborated in the manufacture of ornaments and ritual paraphernalia for the rulers. Very similar items have indeed been recovered in excavations conducted at the main temple of Tenochtitlan in the center of the present city of Mexico. 374 Just as European observers of the sixteenth century had to remain ignorant of the symbolic aspects of the small representations of animals, they regarded body jewelry, whose use among the Aztecs was one of the privileges of dignitaries, as proof of the barbarism of the indigenous populations of the Americas. CF Literature Exh. cat. London, Berlin & Bonn 2002–04, pp. 447, nos. 188, 190. — 15.5 15.6 15.7 — MIXTEC, TEHUANTEPEC, OAXACA, MEXICO GOLD PENDANT WITH HEAD OF A BIRD OF PREY ca. 1500, gold, height 10 cm, Berlin, Staatliehe Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum, Teobert Maler Collection, 1878, inv. no. IV Ca 4621 GOLD PENDANT WITH TURTLE 15th to 16th century, gold, height 8.9 cm, width 1.9 cm, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum, Teobert Maler Collection, 1878, inv. no. IV Ca 4622, MIXTEC, SOUTHERN MEXICO PAIR OF GOLD PENDANTS WITH HEAD OF A BIRD OF PREY 15th to 16th century, gold, diameter 2.1 cm each, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum, Carl Uhde Collection, 1862, inv. no. IV Ca 239, 240 For Dürer and other observers of the things from the still unnamed “new golden land” displayed in 1520, the interest—in keeping withtheir suggested provenance—focused on items made of gold and other precious metals, which testified to the immeasurable riches to be procured there. Already at the time of their shipment from Mexico, Cortés, as a measure of precaution, had all the golden parts of the items carefully recorded in order to prevent their alienation at the hands of the sailors on the way to Europe. Of all the golden artifacts reaching Europe in the sixteenth century, including the sun disk admired by Dürer, which according to Cortes’s records weighed more than seventeen kilograms, only a finger ring has been preserved, having survived in Munich hidden in a Sri Lankan ivory box, as well as the golden applications on a large feather headdress and a feather mosaic shield now in Vienna. Although the Aztecs held greenstone in far higher esteem than gold, the metal was regularly used in the production of ornaments, but had to be acquired by trade or tribute from the southern parts of the country, where in the course of seven centuries the Mixtecs had acquired mastery in the processing of gold. 375 The admiration of Dürer the goldsmith for the “subtle ingenuity” of the people at the margins of the world may be attributed in no small measure to his surprise at the richness of the techniques employed in the manufacture of golden ornaments, including deformation by hammering and punching, soldering, filigree, casting in the lost wax technique, and leaf gilding. CF Literature Exh. cat. London, Berlin & Bonn 20 02 –0 4, pp.443– 47, XXIV–XXV, nos. 176, 180, *21, *22; Saville 1920.