Huge Inca Chucu Painted Plaque - Humans / Zoomorphs

Pre-Columbian, southern Peru, Inca hinterlands (Chucu), ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. An enormous plaque made from light-grey shale, of an oblong form, and decorated with an intricate decorative program in painted hues of marigold, light teal, vermilion, dark-grey, and white with a hint of pink. The scene portrays a gathering of abstract human figures standing amongst a field of zoomorphic creatures, perhaps livestock like llamas, alpacas, or goats. Each animal exhibits four slender legs, a narrow body, and a petite head with tab-shaped ears, and the humans have wide ovoid heads, broad shoulders, rod-form arms draped next to squat abdomens, and lengthy legs. A wavy stripe of red, yellow, and teal pigment bisects the two halves of the decoration and perhaps represents a river or flowing channel of water along which both farmers and livestock lived. Petroglyphic plaques like this example are typically created from large fragments of pottery, so one made of stone like this example is of exceptional rarity! Size: 20.75" W x 20.25" H (52.7 cm x 51.4 cm).

Plaques like this example, made from either pottery or stone, have been discovered in a number of different contexts: beneath wall foundations, in graves, with animal sacrifices, and cached in prominent places in the landscape, like in springs, rock hollows, and atop hills. They are often discovered in pairs, with the painted surfaces placed so that they are facing each other, sometimes wrapped in leaves or even gold sheet. Although the tablet tradition began centuries before, the time period that this one comes from represents the height of the artform, and corresponds to an intensification of agriculture, the rise of interregional trade networks, and the ascendancy of certain important confederations of clans. Into this potent mix, the Inca expanded into the region and the tablet tradition abruptly ended. It seems likely that the Inca, who colonized regions in part by sponsoring local ritual activities, outlawed the creation of religious tablets like this because they saw them as a threat to their trade in sacrificial alpacas, corn beer, and cloth.

Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-private Hillberg collection, Sonoma County, California, USA, acquired between 1960 and 1970

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Condition Report: This is a fragment of a larger stone plaque. Nicks and abrasions to obverse, peripheries, and verso, with fading and chipping to areas of original pigmentation, and light encrustations. Nice earthen deposits throughout and fabulous traces of original pigment across obverse. Mounted on verse with modern metal bracket for display purposes.