David Bernstein Fine Art

04/17/2026

Moche Stirrup Spout Redware Effigy Vessel of a Zoomorphic Amphibian

This beautiful redware vessel features a zoomorphic animal combining the features of a frog and a lizard, with human hands. The vessel combines animal and human characteristics, likely to signify shamanic transformation. The tail is painted with buff slip which is also used highlight the eyes, gills, and underside of the mouth. The animal is depicted with human hands on both its forelegs and hindlegs, representing the ancient Andeans’ animist belief that humans can embody animal characteristics. He is holding a spherical object - perhaps indicating that he is guarding an amphibian egg. He sits atop a rectangular base. Ex. collection Levi Stone, CT, prior to the 1970s.

Peru, Moche I, North Coast, c. AD 100 - 300

Height: 8" x Length: 10"

02/16/2026

01/19/2026

Nazca Cushma Tunic with Burgundy and Tangerine Panels

Cushma textiles became popular during the Nazca period, and their style has a long tradition based on earlier Paracas layouts. Cushma weavings are highly abstracted, without any figurative elements in the composition. Surrounding the central rectangle of most Cushma textiles is a geometric bi-colored border. This tunic has a border of step triangles rotated in alternating positions in black, burgundy, and tangerine which also represents the peaks of the Andes mountains juxtaposed against the ocean weaves. The vivid contrast between the colors expresses the Andeans worldview of living in harmony with dualistic opposites in nature. (For example: sun and moon; male and female; mountains and oceans). This design contains the Four Corners archetype, described by Carl Jung as a flat grid with four quadrants. According to Jung and his colleague Aniela Jaffe, in their book Man and His Symbols, this mandala-like structure is prevalent throughout art history and relates to the human need for directional orientation. The Four Corners archetype is used in art as a device for man to locate his place among the earth and the cosmos.

Peru, Nasca, South Coast, c. AD 400 - 800

Length 82" x Width 55"

09/16/2025

David Bernstein Fine Art is pleased to present The Genuis of Pre-Columbian Gold. This exhibition introduces collectors and enthusiasts to a sampling of the range of gold objects produced in the New World prior to the arrival of Europeans. The collection includes 55 ancient South American goldworks carefully assembled by David Bernstein over the course of his career. The exhibit highlights the beauty and sophistication of the ancient metalworking traditions of Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru, covering a period of history from1500 BC to AD 1500.

To continue reading the press release, click here:
https://www.precolumbianart4sale.com/exhibition/20/press_release/

To download the full color catalog with illustrated essay as a PDF, click here:
https://www.precolumbianart4sale.com/inc/scripts/file.php?file_id=18581&force_download=0

To view all 55 works in the exhibit with detail views and descriptions, click here:
https://www.precolumbianart4sale.com/exhibition/20/exhibition_works/

05/30/2025

To coincide with the re-opening of the Rockefeller Wing - The Department of Africa, Oceana, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as reviewed today in the New York Times by Holland Cotter - David Bernstein Fine Art is pleased to present a new exhibit of 173 rare, museum quality, ancient Taíno and pre-Taíno artifacts, crafted in variety of media including bone, ceramic, shell, stone, and wood, c. 1000 – 1500 AD. The exhibit also includes a selection of ancient objects from the pre-Taíno Saladoid and Ostinoid cultures, dating back as early as 2,500 BC – 600 AD. These objects were carefully acquired over the course of 40 years, and this collection would be impossible to replicate today.

The Taíno were made up of a variety of rich cultural communities. The Broadway hit musical Buena Vista Social Club has its roots going back to these close-knit cultural communities, a type of social institution that dates back to the Taíno.

The Taíno are renowned for both their technical stone carving skills and their ability to combine realism and abstraction. The objects in the collection include large stone deity figures, beautiful stone mortars and pestles, stone celts, adzs, blades, and a variety of small tone personal effects carved in the form of abstract animist deity figures. The collection also features jewelry made of bone, stone, and shell beads - as well as ceramic dishes.

The exhibition is accompanied by Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art and Culture from the Caribbean, a full color catalog which includes an introduction and large color plates of selected objects, followed by an illustrated essay, and ending with a complete catalog of the 173 objects. The essay discusses the natural marine environment of the Caribbean, and the social structure and cosmology of the Taíno, revealing insights about the Taíno recorded by the Spanish chroniclers - including notes from Friar Ramon Pane’s An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians, written in 1498.

The Taíno exhibit at David Bernstein Fine Art online showcases detailed images/views of all 173 objects featured in the exhibition catalog with illustrated essay, available as a downloadable PDF.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ONLINE EXHIBIT:
https://www.precolumbianart4sale.com/.../exhibition_works/

CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD and view the exhibibtion CATALOG with illustrated essay in PDF form:
https://www.precolumbianart4sale.com/inc/scripts/file.php?file_id=18290&force_download=0

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03/24/2025

This Embroidered Mantle with Birds Eating Ripe Seeds depicts a rare subject of birds feeding on ripe quinoa seeds. Quinoa turns red when it is ripe and edible; it is inedible prior to turning red. The plants are arranged in diagonal columns of ripe, red seeds alternating diagonal columns of unripe yellow seeds - except for one column with both red and yellow seeds. One plant has a red stem, mostly red seeds, and a few yellow seeds. The birds depicted are a species with hooked beaks and small feet, characteristics of seed-eating birds. The mantle is embroidered with beautiful red and yellow dyed cotton on a natural brown ground. The rich colors are organic, made from ancient natural dyes that utilized plants native to Peru. The mantle is illustrated in Architectural Digest, Sept. 1983 as well as Arte Textile Del Peru, 1987 on page 263 (Spanish version only).
Peru, Huacho Valley, Late Intermediate Period, c. AD 700 - 1100
Dimensions: Height: 59" x Width: 71"

03/14/2025

I thought I would share this beautiful blackware ceramic vessel depicting a Bonito fish, native to the North coast of Peru. This vessel is from the Lambayeque culture, Peru, North coast, circa A.D. 500 -1100. Dimensions: Length: 8" x Height: 8 1/4". The vessel is my favorite object from my online exhibit of affordable objects, available at David Bernstien Fine Art online:
Charming Objects Under $2,000: https://www.precolumbianart4sale.com/exhibition/15/
Here is a link directly to the Blackware Bonito Vessel:
https://www.precolumbianart4sale.com/.../exhibition.../498

03/11/2025

I haven't posted in a long time and thought I would share a photo of this Early Sihuas Mantle with Large Rayed Head or Stepped Platform. This complete mantle depicts a colorful, stylized, splayed figure outlined in white. This symmetrical image can also be viewed upside- down and portrays a splayed deity emanating energy rays. It is possible that the mantle represents a bird’s eye view of a stepped pyramid with an offering platform on top. This textile was created using the scaffold technique and is unusual for its colors - contrasting deep browns and blacks against yellows and reds. This style of textile comes from the Sihuas Valley near Arequipa, Peru. The Sihuas and the Nasca cultures developed simultaneously. The composition of energetic lines radiating around the splayed central figure gives the appearance of motion, suggesting that the figure is traveling through space and time. Alternately, if the central figure is a pyramid, the lines could suggest that the pyramid is vibrating during an earthquake or other geological or meteorological event. This weaving is illustrated in The Myths & Religion of the Incas by David M. Jones, Anness Publishing Ltd, UK, 2008, pg. 28, and was published in a paper by Nancy Rosoff, curator at the Brooklyn Museum of Art - "The Rayed Head in the SAIS: Southern Andean Iconographic Series." Rosoff dates this mantle to the latter stage of the Sihuas 1 period, c. 100 BC-AD 100. Acquired in 1994 from Arte Textil Gallery, San Francisco - prior to the 1980s. Dimensions: Length: 67" x Width: 87" (170 cm x 220 cm).