NEW YORK, NY.- Bonhams will offer an important collection of Pre-Columbian art in the auction of African, Oceanic & Pre-Columbian art to be held in New York on November 12.

An important featured lot is a rare Aztec Deity of Xochipilli-Macuilxochitl from the Late Postclassic period, circa. A.D. 1450-1521 (est. $80,000 – 120,000). Xochipilli was celebrated by the Nahua Aztecs during at least two important feasts, the small feast day of the lords, which nobility attended; and the feast of flowers that invited painters and seamstresses. The figure is made from a light-green aragonite that depicts Xochipilli wearing the headdress of the crested coxcoxtli, a bird whose open bill frames his face and feathers wrap around Xochipilli’s form like a garment.

From Papua New Guinea is an exceptional Sawos Ancestral Guardian Male Figure, estimated to fetch between $40,000 and 60,000. The wooden figure towers at 83 inches and has a large oblong head from which bulbous tubular eyes protrude. It was once in the prestigious collection of Marcia and John Friede.

A selection of pieces fresh to the market include a fine and extremely rare Bird Pendant from Easter Island (est. $8,000-12,000) that boasts an exceptional reddish-brown patina, a finely carved ovoid form that portrays a bird halfway hatched from an egg; a rare stone God Image from Ra'ivavae in the Society Islands (est. $8,000 – 12,000), whose stylized facial features gaze upward with an open mouth; and a fine and rare Parrying Shield from the Tonga Islands (est. $12,000-18,000), which used to serve as a weapon as well that was carried by priests and chiefs.

A small and tasteful selection of Tribal Art from the Collection of Ben-Zion, a New York City based artist and writer who was a member of the expressionist group “The Ten,” which included Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb, will also be on offer.

A prominent section in this auction features the highly acclaimed, single-owner collection of roughly 130 Pre-Columbian works of art from Mesoamerica from the Collection of Scott Gentling and Stuart Gentling.