Chimu-Inca Colonial Glazed Whistling Vessel | Monkey, Gourd Cluster

Pre-Columbian, Peru, Chimu-Inca, Colonial period, ca. 1450–1550 CE. A cluster of five plump melons or gourds, each set point down, forms the body of this transitional Andean bottle. Two of the lobes carry tall tubular necks joined by a flat bridge handle: one opens as a functioning spout, the other rises to a flared platform surmounted by a small seated monkey, its chamber holding a whistle that still sounds. The classic Chimu-Inca stirrup arrangement is preserved, yet the entire surface wears a mottled green-gold alkaline glaze of European introduction, pooling and pitting across the swollen lobes. Vegetal effigy forms of this kind celebrated agricultural abundance, and the whistling chamber suggests use in ceremonial pouring or libation rather than ordinary domestic service. A rare type. Size: 7.375" Diam x 7.5" H (18.7 cm Diam x 19.1 cm H).

Glaze technology was unknown in the pre-contact Andes, where potters achieved their surfaces through burnishing, slip painting, and reduction firing. Lead and alkaline glazes arrived with Spanish and creole potters in the sixteenth century, and vessels like this one, which keep an indigenous shape vocabulary (the double-spout-and-bridge bottle, the modeled fauna, the produce effigy body) while adopting an imported kiln chemistry, mark the brief and rarely documented moment when the two traditions ran together in a single workshop.

Whistling bottles are among the most ingenious inventions of the Peruvian north coast, attested from Chorrera and Vicus through Moche and Chimu. Air displaced by liquid moving between chambers is forced across an internal fipple, producing a note as the vessel is tipped or rocked. The monkey perched above the resonating chamber is a favored Chimu subject, associated with the warm eastern forests and their prized exotic goods.

Provenance: Collection of a Chicago physician. Ex. Arte Primitivo Auction 55, lot 165, 2010. Collection of Robert Sonin, N.J. 1970’s.

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Item #

73225

Condition
Some loss to the spout rim, otherwise intact, excellent condition.

Buyer's Premium
30%