Moche IV Stirrup Vessel, Conch Trumpet Musician, ex-Drimmer

Pre-Columbian, Peru, Moche IV, ca. 500–700 CE. A salmon-slipped pottery effigy vessel modeled as a standing male musician, both hands raised to sound a conch trumpet held against his lips. He wears a domed cap bound by a broad white fillet, large beaded disc ear ornaments, and a layered tunic and skirt whose vertical bands and dotted registers are picked out in cream slip against burnished red. A cylindrical spout rises from an arching stirrup handle at the rear, the signature closed form of North Coast ceramics. Modeled figural vessels of this type accompanied the dead, and the trumpeter belongs to a recurring cast of ritual performers whose music likely framed processions and sacrificial ceremony. Size: 7.875" W x 6.25" H x 3.625" D (20.0 cm W x 15.9 cm H x 9.2 cm D).

Conch trumpets (pututus) reached the Moche heartland through long-distance exchange with Ecuadorian waters, where the thorny oyster and the Strombus conch were harvested; their arrival on the arid North Coast made them prestige objects long before they were instruments. Moche fineline painting and modeled ceramics repeatedly show trumpeters flanking prisoners, litters, and officiants, and Strombus shells have been recovered from elite tombs alongside the very vessels that depict them.

Phase IV, the classic horizon of Moche ceramic production, is marked by increasingly naturalistic portrait and genre modeling paired with a tightly restricted red-and-cream palette, produced in press molds and finished by hand.

Provenance: Ex. Collection of Leo and Beatrice Drimmer, acquired in the 1960’s. To family by descent.

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Item #

73170

Condition
Tip of chimney spout slightly ground down, minor chip on the edge of the shell, and an ancient chip on the left side of his foot, some light paint wear, otherwise intact.

Buyer's Premium
30%