2025
David Bernstein Fine Art is pleased to present The Genuis of Pre-Columbian Gold. (Click here to download). This publication features a full color illustrated essay introducing collectors and enthusiasts to a sampling of the range of gold objects produced in the ancient Americas prior to the arrival of the Europeans. The catalog accompanies an exhibition of 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. These gold treasures are among the most interesting gold objects in human history and have fascinated notable luminaries including famous German artist Albrecht Durer and renowned mid-Century scholar Allen Wardwell, curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, who organized the ground-breaking exhibition The Gold of Ancient America in 1968.
Many of these goldworks were owned, worn, and buried with high-status individuals such as rulers, shamans, and elites – and were intended to convey wealth, power, and status, as well as to ensure the continuum of the relationship between the sun and the spiritual connection to the afterlife. Complex motifs played a symbolic and sacred role, linking rulers, shamans, and elites with the deified forces of nature. As gold was worn in processional ceremonies, the kinetic movement reflected the glimmer of the sun and the power of the cosmos. Gold was perceived as magical, spiritual and believed by the ancients to possess transformative power. As Neil de Grasse Tyson has said, we are all made of stardust, and gold is a byproduct of exploded stars.
The native peoples of the Americas experienced great culture shock when New World conquistadors invaded and melted the gold down for their treasuries. The natives could not understand why the conquistadors melted the gold into simple ingots, destroying the gold’s spiritual essence. To the ancients, the value of gold was held within its artistic form and its connection to the cosmos, which gave the gold meaning and power. Melting gold, according to the Pre-Columbians, would be the modern-day equivalent of turning designer haute couture into rags.
Many pieces in this collection have either been illustrated in the literature or are comparable to objects in museum collections worldwide. The objects in the exhibit were acquired in the U.S. from old collections and private collectors over the past 30 years, in compliance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the governments of Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, and Parama, and Peru with the United States. Many of the pieces come from the estate of Jan Mitchell, a well-known collector. Several are illustrated The Art of Pre-Columbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in1985. Several other pieces in the exhibit were published in The Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America, by Hasso Von Winning in 1968.
In addition to the illustrated essay, the publication includes an essay on distinguishing forgeries from authentic works, a full color illustrated catalog of the 55 lots of gold works featured in the exhibition, and a bibliograph on Pre-Columbian gold.
