Large Cocle Macaracas Polychrome Jar w/ Saurians

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Exceptional Day 2: Pre-Columbian & Tribal Art...

By Artemis Gallery

Oct 3, 2019

Set Reminder 2019-10-03 10:00:00 2019-10-03 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Exceptional Day 2: Pre-Columbian & Tribal Art https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/exceptional-day-2-pre-columbian-tribal-art-4453
Day 2 of an important 2-day auction featuring exceptional, museum-worthy examples of Pre-Columbian from the ancient Americas, Native American, African / Tribal, Oceanic, Spanish Colonial and fossils. Artemis Gallery info@artemisgallery.com

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• Lot Description
  Pre-Columbian, Central America, Panama, Gran Cocle, Macaracas style, ca. 800 to 1000 CE. A handsome pottery jar of a sizable, round-bottomed form with a bowl-shaped body and a carinated shoulder. Cream-hued slip forms a ground atop which bold red, black, and purple pigments illustrate a wondrous, abstract zoomorphic scene. Centered on each hemisphere is a large saurian creature with a broad, tooth-filled mouth, squat legs with enormous talons, flared nostrils, and concentric circular eyes with serrated tendrils that terminate in an additional saurian-form head. The wide rim is surrounded by a white-and-black scalloped motif, and the interior neck is colored with solid red. Lucite display stand for photography purposes only. Size: 11.5" W x 9.8" H (29.2 cm x 24.9 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 Joaquín 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 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 with nearly identical saurian motifs, please see: Labbe, Armand J. "Guardians of the Lifestream: Shamans, Art and Power in Prehispanic Central Panama." Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, University of Washington Press, 1995. p. 16, fig. 4.
  
  Provenance: private Los Angeles, California, USA collection owned for almost two decades
  
  All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
  
  A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
  
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  #149949

  Condition

  Possible repairs and overpainting to areas of body and rim, but nearly invisible if present. Abrasions to base, body, and neck, with fading as well as areas of age-commensurate darkening to original pigmentation, and light encrustations. Nice manganese blooms and craquelure throughout.
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