Fine Cocle Macaracas Polychrome Pedestal Plate

Pre-Columbian, Central America, Panama, Gran Cocle, Macaracas style, ca. 800 to 1000 CE. A beautiful, hand-built pottery pedestal plate with a broad foot and a tapered pedestal neck surmounted by a shallow dish with a thick rim. The orange-slipped vessel features a black-and-red program along the pedestal and dish underside with abstract pointed forms beneath the dish, broad diamonds and trapezoids on the foot and pedestal, and red rings and stripes interspersed. The basin surface adds in a fourth color - purple - to accentuate the highly abstract standing saurian figure presented in the center that has bulging eyes above a narrow mouth, bent arms with clawed fingers, delineated feet with lengthy toes, and serrated stingray barbs projecting from its body. An interesting and highly perplexing example of Cocle figural iconography. Size: 9.5" W x 7.7" H (24.1 cm x 19.6 cm)

According to scholar Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, "The Gran Cocle culture is a Pre-Columbian archaeological culture that gets its name from the area from which it was based, the now present-day Cocle province of Panama. The Gran Cocle term applies to a loosely studied group of Native American sub-cultures in this region, identified by their pottery styles. The overall period spans a time from 150 B.C. to the end in the 16th century A.D. upon Spanish contact. The most ancient culture is the La Mula period from 150 B.C. to 300 A.D. The La Mula and later Monagrillo and Tonosi pottery styles are identified by their use of three paint colors which were black, red and white (or cream). The later Cubita style saw the emergence of the use of four colors. The styles of Conte, Macaracas and Joaquin added purple to their palette and this hue ranged from grayish tones to red purple. The use of purple disappeared in the subsequent styles of Parita and El Altillo and the paint style reverted back to the use of three colors. Most notable in the artistic renderings are the overt use of geometric designs." (For more information, see Armand Labbe, "Guardians of The Life Stream: Shamans, Art and Power in Prehispanic Central Panama" - Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, University of Washington Press, 1995.)

For a stylistically similar example of the figural iconography, please see: Labbe, Armand J. "Guardians of the Life Stream: Shamans, Art and Power in Prehispanic Central Panama." The University of Washington Press, 1995, p. 40, fig. 38.

Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-private Dallas, Texas, USA collection

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#152703 Dimensions: Condition Report: Neck and foot repaired from multiple pieces, with minor restoration in some areas, and resurfacing and overpainting along new material and break lines. Minor abrasions to rim, basin, neck, and foot, with light fading to areas of original pigment, light encrustations, and a couple of stabilized fissures. Light earthen deposits, nice manganese blooms, and great traces of original pigment throughout.