Items Similar to "Moche Owl Pot, " Animalic Ceramic Vessel created in Pre-Columbian Peru
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 9
Unknown"Moche Owl Pot, " Animalic Ceramic Vessel created in Pre-Columbian PeruUnknown
Unknown
About the Item
This piece is a pot made by an unknown artist in Pre-Columbian Peru. It takes the shape of an owl and has a circular handle with the opening on its back. This pot is a light beige and red ocher color.
8" x 6" x 4 3/4"
Essay from Helene Bernier: "Moche society flourished on the north Peruvian coastal desert between the first and the eighth centuries A.D., in valleys irrigated by rivers flowing westward from the Andes to the Pacific Ocean. The Moche were innovators on many political, ideological, and artistic levels. They developed a powerful elite and specialized craft production, and instituted labor tribute payments. They elaborated new technologies in metallurgy, pottery, and textile production, and finally, they created an elaborate ideological system and a complex religious iconography.
Moche skilled ceramists produced a great variety of exquisitely decorated vessels. The decoration is sometimes painted on the smooth surface of vessels; other times it is tridimensional, forming the vessel shape itself. Occasionally, the message takes both a painted and sculpted form, one completing the other . Nearly all decorated vessels are slip-painted and bichrome, with red decoration on a white/cream background. White on red and black postfire paint are also present to a lesser extent. While painted motifs are generally simple on three-dimensional vessels, two-dimensional decoration sometimes takes the shape of finely painted, highly complex narrative scenes.
Moche decorated vessels were mold-made and, despite their diversity, reveal standardized shapes and decoration. Nine basic shapes are reported in the literature. Stirrup-spout bottles and flaring bowls are the privileged supports on which artists expressed figurative, complex painted scenes. Other shapes are neck and neckless jars, dippers, bowls, neck bowls, cups, and crucibles.
Moche ceramic art represents an infinite variety of subjects. Common zoomorphic figures include camelids, deer, felines, foxes, rodents, monkeys, bats, sea lions, as well as a wide array of birds, fish, shells, arachnids, and reptiles. These animals are represented realistically, hybridized, or anthropomorphized. Corn, squash, tubers, and beans are common among a great diversity of plants. Among human and anthropomorphic figures, rulers, warriors, prisoners, priests, healers, and fanged deities are recognizable, as well as deformed and skeletal individuals. Historical individuals are also represented in realistic, three-dimensional portrait vessels . While animals are often anthropomorphized or hybridized, humans often have supernatural attributes.
All these figures are either represented alone or interacting in a variety of actions in diverse narrative scenes. Although the possibilities of creating different scenes from all existing Moche figures are almost limitless, major trends can be recognized in narrative art and representations are limited to a small number of recurring and interrelated themes. For example, deer and seal hunts, sacrifice ceremonies, warriors in battle or moving in processions, and messengers running in line are common themes in Moche ceramic art.
Scholars do not agree about the various functions of Moche decorated ceramics. Until recently, these works of art were thought to be essentially funerary offerings, as they were documented in a great number of burials. Indeed, fineware is the offering par excellence in burials of any social status as a marker of Moche social identity. Decorated vessels were imbued with a strong funerary dimension. However, many vessels uncovered in Moche burials show traces of abrasion, chipping, or repairs.
Recent excavations in residential areas, notably in the Moche and Santa Valleys in projects carried out by Universidad Nacional de Trujillo and Université de Montréal, revealed that finely decorated pottery is not only present but abundant in Moche domestic compounds. Many decorated vessels were not produced exclusively for a funerary purpose. Whereas many of them were ultimately placed in burials or made especially for the dead, most were produced to be used by the living in everyday life. The access to decorated vessels by the living was not unrestricted; some categories of vessels, as well as depictions of some religious themes, were exclusively destined for burial with the dead or for use in elite ritual performances. However, a great variety of vessels, many of them identical to those found in graves, were destined for domestic use.
Vessels decorated with religious themes were not merely indicators of social status at the site of Moche. They were strategically used at a household level, as tools to further political ambitions and communicate membership within groups. As evidenced by their iconographic content and the location in which they were abandoned, decorated vessels were an integral part of household-level rituals, meetings, and other status-building activities like feasts, where they were displayed, used, accidentally broken, and in some cases given away along with food and corn beer."
- Creation Year:Unknown
- Dimensions:Height: 8 in (20.32 cm)Width: 6 in (15.24 cm)Depth: 4.75 in (12.07 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:item in excellent condition for its age, small holes on face of owl, some fading, chipping, and discoloration of slip coloring.
- Gallery Location:Milwaukee, WI
- Reference Number:
About the Seller
4.9
Platinum Seller
These expertly vetted sellers are 1stDibs' most experienced sellers and are rated highest by our customers.
Established in 1966
1stDibs seller since 2017
392 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 1 hour
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Milwaukee, WI
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- "Feathered Series I, " Porcelain signed by Marjorie MauBy Marjorie MauLocated in Milwaukee, WI"Feathered Series I" is an original porcelain and ink piece by Marjorie Mau. The artist signed the sculpture. 16" x 14" x 3" art Artist's Statement: "My works are about the act of ...Category
1980s Sculptures
MaterialsPorcelain, Ink, Mixed Media
- "Tool Relief II, " Original Stoneware Cylinder Vase signed by David BarnettBy David BarnettLocated in Milwaukee, WI"Tool Relief II" is an original sculptural stonework vase by David Barnett. It is signed and dated on the bottom. 13" H x 3.50 D David Barnett, an artist, collector, appraiser and ...Category
1960s Contemporary Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsStoneware
- 'Bowl' Hand Thrown Glazed Stoneware signed by Mark ShekoreBy Mark ShekoreLocated in Milwaukee, WI'Bowl' is an original glazed stoneware by Mark Shekore. The artist signed the piece on the bottom. It is 8" tall and has a diameter of 6 1/2". Mark Shekore attended the Universit...Category
1960s More Art
MaterialsCeramic, Stoneware, Glaze
- 'Bowl (Blue & White), ' Hand Thrown Glazed Stoneware signed by Mark ShekoreBy Mark ShekoreLocated in Milwaukee, WI'Bowl (Blue & White)' is a hand-thrown glazed stoneware bowl made by Mark Shekore, signed with his last name on the bottom of the piece. 3.75 x 8.75 in Mark Shekore attended the Un...Category
1960s Sculptures
MaterialsStoneware, Glaze
- White Horse, Black Stripes/Black Horse, White StripesBy Susan PottsLocated in Milwaukee, WIIntriguing and Unusual Imagery Name: Intriguing and Unusual Imagery Year: 1984 Venues West Bend Gallery of Fine Arts Susan Potts is a Wisconsin-based ar...Category
1980s Sculptures
MaterialsPorcelain
- Jerusalem, Perfume Vessel, Iron AgeLocated in Milwaukee, WI4x3 Ceramic Ancient clay perfume jug from the Iron Age discovered in Jerusalem.Category
15th Century and Earlier Sculptures
MaterialsCeramic
You May Also Like
- Visage noir Moucheté, Picasso, Plate, Portrait, Naif, Multiples, EarthenwareBy Pablo PicassoLocated in Geneva, CHVisage noir Moucheté, Picasso, Plate, Portrait, Naif, Multiples, Earthenware Visage noir moucheté Ed. 39/200 pcs 1948 white earthenware clay, decoration in engobes under glaze 31 x ...Category
1940s Post-War Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsCeramic, Clay, Earthenware
- Contemporary Wood Fired Porcelain Jar Form, Design, Sculpture, Glaze, CeramicBy Perry HaasLocated in St. Louis, MOPerry Haas is a ceramic artist making functional pottery and focusing on wood-firing techniques. Drawing from a love for the wood-fired ceramic surface, Perry looks to anticipate the...Category
2010s Contemporary Sculptures
MaterialsIron
- "Droplet 1916", Contemporary, Ceramic, Wood Fired, Porcelain, Glaze, Wood StandBy Perry HaasLocated in St. Louis, MOPerry Haas is a ceramic artist making functional pottery and focusing on wood-firing techniques. Drawing from a love for the wood-fired ceramic surface, Perry looks to anticipate the...Category
2010s Contemporary Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsIron
- Blue MoonBy Seunghwui KooLocated in Palm Beach, FL"Moon" from the famous Series "People", ceramic and acrylic on wood panel, D: 36 inches In Korean culture, the moon is a beacon of hope and wish. Blue Moon i...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
MaterialsCeramic, Acrylic, Wood Panel
- Stack, Turquoise GlazedLocated in New York, NYTorbjørn Kvasbo (Norwegian, b. 1953) is a ceramic artist of international acclaim, with a career spanning several decades. He lives and works in Venaby...Category
2010s Contemporary Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsStoneware, Glaze
- Stack, White UnglazedLocated in New York, NYTorbjørn Kvasbo (Norwegian, b. 1953) is a ceramic artist of international acclaim, with a career spanning several decades. He lives and works in Venaby...Category
2010s Contemporary Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsStoneware
Recently Viewed
View AllMore Ways To Browse
Antique Ceramic Vessel
Antique Food Art
Antique Ceramic Sculpture
Sculpture Display Case
Antique Ceramic Pots
Ceramic Pot Antique
Pre Columbian Art
Sculpture Of Owls
Antique Oceanic Art
Antique White Pot
Deity Sculpture
Three Birds Sculpture
White Ceramic Pots
Peru Sculpture
Antique Peru
Black Ceramic Figures
3d Shell Art
Cream Pot