The Arts of the Americas collection includes four specialty areas: Pre-Columbian, African, Oceanic, and the Colonial and Independence periods of Latin America.

The pre-Columbian collection is considered one of the best in the United States by national experts and includes examples of Olmec, Preclassic, ritual ballgame figurines, Teotihuacan, Maya, West Mexican, Veracruz, Zapotec, Toltec, Mixtec and Aztec cultures. Click here to see highlights of the Aztlan Collection.

The African collection is currently expanding by gathering high quality examples of the Yorba sculpture tradition.

The Latin American collection highlights the artistic blending of the indigenous cultures found in Central and South America with that of Spain.

Scholar and collector Peter David Joralemon has donated an important Maya ritual ballgame object to honor Snite Museum of Art curator Douglas E. Bradley. It is a well-known sculpture from the Jay C. Leff collection of Allentown, Pennsylvania that depicts one of the Maya Hero Twins as a diving ritual ballplayer.

This extraordinary object combines the bold Chavin stirrup spout tradition from Peru with Olmec-like excised decoration from Mexico. For decades, scholars have speculated a connection between the Olmec and Chavin worlds because of Olmec style iconography found on Chavin works of art, and because of Chavin style stirrup spout bottles made in the Highlands of Mexico.

Junius Bird, curator of South American Archaeology at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, borrowed the bottle for an exhibition in 1961. In the owner’s catalog, he inscribed, “For Paul Tishman, owner of the finest 3000 year old house ever found in Peru. Junius Bird."

This large diameter vessel is a simple, elegant Olmec form without sculptural ornamentation. The external walls are smooth and even, giving the appearance of having been wheel-thrown, but the coil technique was used instead, as was the case with Mesoamerican vessels until the Conquest. As an example of the ceramist’s art, it is superb.

The provenance is extraordinary because when Andre Emmerich, the most important 20th century modern art dealer in New York, sold the vessel to Dr. William Greenspon, Dr. Greenspon kept the receipt, dated November 11, 1966.

This polychrome standing figure is an elegant expression of the human to animal transformation concept prominent in many New World art styles. It represents a shaman transforming into a falcon, while holding important fertility symbols—a severed trophy head and a snake. Its craftsmanship and size are very impressive. The maroon, brick red and orange of the costume create a lively base for other color contrasts of white, gray, brick red and black on the head and eyes. Incising between different colors of slip, found on the head diadem and brow lines, is diagnostic of the Proto-Nazca period.