Ancient Mezcala Stone Scuptures
Pen and ink drawings, 1966-87
PRATT, Frances (1913-2003). Original drawings for Mezcala Stone Sculpture: The Human Figure (1967) and Mezcala: Ancient Stone Sculpture from Guerrero, Mexico (1992). [United States, 1966-1987.]

Pen-and-ink drawings by Frances Pratt, one of the great modern illustrators of Mesoamerican art. Frances Pratt, a native of New Jersey, studied art at the New York School of Applied Design for Women and the Arts Students League in the 1930s. For much of her career Pratt was a private dealer of pre-Columbian art, and starting in 1967 she collaborated with Carlo T.E. Gay on several books on ancient Mexican art, providing hundreds of her meticulous, sympathetic illustrations. The first of these collaborations was Mezcala Stone Sculpture: The Human Figure (New York: Museum of Primitive Art, 1967). Thirteen of the drawings in this collection were originally reproduced in that book; the rest appeared several years later in Mezcala: Stone Sculpture from Guerrero, Mexico (Geneva: Balsas, 1992). The Mezcala culture of southwestern Mexico, which developed from ca. 700-200 BCE and continued through ca. 250-650 AD, is still poorly understood. Pratt’s drawings depict various zoomorphic, architectural, ritual and secular stone objects and ornaments, all drawn at 1:1 scale in crowquill pen-and-ink pointillist technique. Several of the drawings are enhanced with sepia or green color, and all are signed "Frances Pratt" and dated between 1967 and 1987. In a personal note included in the 1996 Sotheby's catalogue in which the drawings were sold, Pratt reflected: "Now that the original figures, architectural models, household utensils and [a] panoply of animals are scattered to the four winds, the drawings are a reminder of those who, in simple faith, imagined a new abode, poignantly peopled by family and friends and replete with totems and tokens of their home on earth."

193 drawings on 143 leaves (280 x 108mm and smaller). All matted and housed in seven cloth clamshell boxes (occasional light smudging; Zambrano Library of Congress call number labels on inside of boxes). Provenance: Frances Pratt (Sotheby’s New York, 14 May 1996, lot 81).