Dumbarton Oaks
Titles appearing in Art Book News Annual — January 2006
Olmec art at Dumbarton Oaks.
Taube, Karl A. (Pre-Columbian art at Dumbarton Oaks; no.2)
Dumbarton Oaks, ©2004 228 p. $65.00 F1219
0-88402-275-7
The second in a series of catalogues on objects in the Bliss Pre-Columbian Collection at Dumbarton Oaks, this attractive volume illustrates 39 primarily jade Olmec art objects with color plates, black & white photographs, and line drawings. Taube (anthropology, U. of California, Riverside) first provides an introduction to Bliss's collection, and to the development of Olmec research. Next he writes of each art object: its provenance, a basic description, the historical context, and an analysis of the object's possible function or meaning. The book concludes with an essay on the geological reconnaissance for Mesoamerican jade in Guatemala. The format is oversize: 9.25x12.5 inches. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
