Pendant Shaped like an Eagle Warrior

The best pieces in the Hermitage’s stock of Mexican antiquities come from the collection of the Stroganov family, including a work of world rank – a bell pendant shaped like an eagle warrior. The warrior’s face is framed by the two halves of the “beak” of his eagle helmet. He has feathers on his slender arms and talons instead of human feet. His right hand holds a short spear, the left three darts and a round shield. There are two loops on the back of the head to allow the piece to be suspended. A copper bead inside the hollow body turns the pendant into a jingle bell. Depictions of eagle warriors are quite common in Aztec art. That bird of prey was associated with the Sun. There was a sort of “order” of eagle warriors, and this bell pendant would most probably have adorned the chest of one of its leaders. The pendant is noteworthy not only for the high quality of the workmanship. The Spanish conquistadors melted down a lot of pre-Columbian gold articles, and only a few isolated first-rate pieces of Aztec metalwork have come down to us today. Moreover, as Rostislav Kinzhalov, one of the foremost experts on the art of the ancient Americas, wrote: “… our example is not only unique now, but was unique at the moment when it was made.” Researchers do not rule out its having been created by a Mixtec craftsman working for the Aztecs. This exhibit arrived in Russia no later than the 1880s. The greater part of the Stroganov collection came into the Hermitage in the late 1920s, but the gold pendant was transferred to the museum only in 1935, from the infamous Antikvariat, the body that organized the sale of artworks abroad. Evidently it failed to dispose of this particular piece, and it was returned to the Hermitage.