Paris (AFP)
Despite protests from Mexico demanding the cancellation of the sale, a statuette was sold 377,000 euros with other pre-Columbian works, Wednesday at auction in Paris.
It was one of 120 lots of pre-Columbian art sold by the Millon House at the Hotel Drouot in Paris, from the collection of Manichak and Jean Aurance, and sold for a total of 1.2 million euros.
The volcanic rock statuette of Chalchiuhtlicue, Aztec goddess of water and protector of births, the ecstatic face, was awarded 377,000 euros, five times more than the estimated price.
Mexico had demanded the cancellation of the sale, a new initiative by his government to defend what he considers his national heritage abroad.
Auctioneer Alexandre Millon welcomed the sale of the "serenity" of the French authorities, which did not yield to "media pressure".
The Mexican ambassador had alerted the French Ministry of Justice and Unesco. He said he had met five times in recent days the French ministries of culture and foreign affairs.
Out of more than 120 items on sale, "95 are from Mexico's cultural heritage" and 23 "could be newly created copies," said Mexico's ambassador to France, Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo.
"This type of trade is fueling the looting, illegal trafficking and imitation practiced by transnational organized crime," said the ambassador.
Unesco recommended a postponement of the sale in order to clarify to Mexico the provenance of the objects.
Last week, however, Guatemala announced the suspension by Millon of the sale of one of the pre-Hispanic coins contained in this catalog, the fragment of a Mayan stele.
Mexico has on more than one occasion demanded the suspension of pre-Columbian art sales in Paris, as in 2013 with the sale of the Barbier-Mueller collection. However, this is the first action in this direction of the new president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Mr. Gómez Robledo recalled that, in his government's view, cultural heritage was "one of the priorities of his foreign policy".
© 2019 AFP