On view
Tumi (ceremonial knife) with figural finial,
1470–1532
More Context
Campus Voices
<p>The Incas amassed one of the largest empires in the world in their time. Their expansion was facilitated by their tremendous network of roads, which allowed for the movement of people and goods. This <em>tumi</em> knife bears the material evidence of these migrations: while the precious metals used for the handle and blade likely were mined high in the Andes, many of the small inlays within the metal were cut from seashells from the Pacific. The most precious of these were the orange-pink shells from spiny oysters, known as Spondylus, harvested in the distant, warmer waters of Ecuador.</p> <p><strong>Andrew Hamilton</strong>, <em>Lecturer, Art History and Archaeology</em></p>
More About This Object
Information
1470–1532
South America, Peru, Central highlands
December 1969, André Emmerich Gallery, New York (SO-9666), sold to Dr. Daniel Rifkin New York [1]. March 4, 1989, Merrin Gallery, New York, sold to US private collection [2]; 2014, sold to the Princeton University Art Museum.
Notes:
[1] According to the Emmerich Gallery inventory card, Sotheby’s, New York, copy held in the curatorial file and Dr. Rifkin’s ledger book.
[2] According to documentation from US private collection.
- André Emmerich Gallery, Sun Gods and Saints: Art of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Peru (New York: Andre Emmerich, Inc., 1969)., cat. no. 29 (including two black and white illustrations)
- "Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2014", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 74 (2015): p. 55-77., p. 62; p. 63 (color illus.)
