Nazca Polychrome Anthropomorphic Bottle with Weeping EyesPre-Columbian, Peru, Nazca, ca....
Nazca Polychrome Anthropomorphic Bottle with Weeping EyesPre-Columbian, Peru, Nazca, ca. 100–600 CE. A human presence rises from a globular jar: the tall tapering spout doubles as a head and conical cap, its modeled nose and pursed mouth flanked by painted eyes trailing vertical cream stripes like falling tears. A strap handle loops from neck to shoulder. Across the bulbous body, slip-painted in cream on burnished red-brown, runs a five-strand necklace, while two splayed hands are set at the sides as though the vessel itself were the figure's torso. Such polychrome bottles were built by coiling, burnished, and fired in oxidizing conditions, the pigments applied before firing in the mineral slips for which Nazca potters are known. Vessels of this type served as offerings and grave furniture as often as containers for liquid. Size: 3.875" Diam x 5.75" H (9.8 cm Diam x 14.6 cm H).
Nazca potters of Peru's south coast worked without glaze, achieving their palette instead through finely levigated mineral slips applied before firing, a technique that gave them a broader range of stable colors than almost any other Andean tradition. The striped markings beneath the eyes of figures like this one are conventionally read as tears or facial paint, a motif also carried by the so-called Oculate Being of Paracas and Early Nazca iconography, and associated with water, fertility, and agricultural supplication in a desert where irrigation determined survival.
The reduction of a whole human body to a face on the spout, a painted necklace, and two disembodied hands is characteristic of Nazca abbreviation: the vessel becomes the torso, and the ornament does the work of anatomy.
Provenance: Private NYC. collection; Ex. Edward H. Merrin Gallery, Inc., NYC., 1980’s.
SHIPPING: We coordinate worldwide shipping in-house through specialist international forwarders experienced with fine art and antiquities customs manifests. International buyers must confirm, prior to bidding, that their country's customs authority will accept the item. All duties, taxes, clearance fees, and any costs arising from customs delays, seizures, re-export, returns, or loss in transit are the buyer's sole responsibility. Artemis assumes no liability for items refused entry, detained, or lost after export. We cannot ship ancient items to their country of origin (Egyptian to Egypt, Greek to Greece, etc.).
PAYMENT EXCEPTION: For clients not previously established with Artemis, payment for all gold, precious metal, and gemstone lots must be made by bank wire transfer or certified bank check/money order, without exception.
Item #73194Two extremely minor tiny paint flakes on the rim, otherwise intact, Excellent condition.
Nazca Polychrome Anthropomorphic Bottle with Weeping EyesPre-Columbian, Peru, Nazca, ca. 100–600 CE. A human presence rises from a globular jar: the tall tapering spout doubles as a head and conical cap, its modeled nose and pursed mouth flanked by painted eyes trailing vertical cream stripes like falling tears. A strap handle loops from neck to shoulder. Across the bulbous body, slip-painted in cream on burnished red-brown, runs a five-strand necklace, while two splayed hands are set at the sides as though the vessel itself were the figure's torso. Such polychrome bottles were built by coiling, burnished, and fired in oxidizing conditions, the pigments applied before firing in the mineral slips for which Nazca potters are known. Vessels of this type served as offerings and grave furniture as often as containers for liquid. Size: 3.875" Diam x 5.75" H (9.8 cm Diam x 14.6 cm H).
Nazca potters of Peru's south coast worked without glaze, achieving their palette instead through finely levigated mineral slips applied before firing, a technique that gave them a broader range of stable colors than almost any other Andean tradition. The striped markings beneath the eyes of figures like this one are conventionally read as tears or facial paint, a motif also carried by the so-called Oculate Being of Paracas and Early Nazca iconography, and associated with water, fertility, and agricultural supplication in a desert where irrigation determined survival.
The reduction of a whole human body to a face on the spout, a painted necklace, and two disembodied hands is characteristic of Nazca abbreviation: the vessel becomes the torso, and the ornament does the work of anatomy.
Provenance: Private NYC. collection; Ex. Edward H. Merrin Gallery, Inc., NYC., 1980’s.
SHIPPING: We coordinate worldwide shipping in-house through specialist international forwarders experienced with fine art and antiquities customs manifests. International buyers must confirm, prior to bidding, that their country's customs authority will accept the item. All duties, taxes, clearance fees, and any costs arising from customs delays, seizures, re-export, returns, or loss in transit are the buyer's sole responsibility. Artemis assumes no liability for items refused entry, detained, or lost after export. We cannot ship ancient items to their country of origin (Egyptian to Egypt, Greek to Greece, etc.).
PAYMENT EXCEPTION: For clients not previously established with Artemis, payment for all gold, precious metal, and gemstone lots must be made by bank wire transfer or certified bank check/money order, without exception.
Item #73194Two extremely minor tiny paint flakes on the rim, otherwise intact, Excellent condition.
