Large Inca Chucu Terracotta Plaque w/ Figures & Animals

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Antiquities | Asian | Ethnographic Art

By Artemis Gallery

Sep 10, 2020

Set Reminder 2020-09-10 10:00:00 2020-09-10 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Antiquities | Asian | Ethnographic Art https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/antiquities-asian-ethnographic-art-5546
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• Lot Description
  Pre-Columbian, southern Peru, Inca hinterlands (Chucu), ca. 1200 to 1500 CE. A large, rectangular ceramic plaque with slight curves that create a gentle concave profile. The obverse features a charming, minimalist scene of a man and a woman as well as a smaller figure, perhaps a child, below one foot of the woman in a field filled with vegetative life and a pair of grazing camelids. The agrarian scene is enclosed with two columns of zigzagging waterways in red, orange, and blue-green hues, and the lateral peripheries bear remains of powdery white pigment. These plaques were made by smashing large vessels, forming the fragments into a regular, recognizable shape, and painting the inwardly curving interior side. Custom metal display stand included. Size: 13.6" W x 13.8" H (34.5 cm x 35.1 cm)
  
  Inca Chucu plaques like this example 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 sheets. 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
  
  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.
  
  We ship worldwide and handle all shipping in-house for your convenience.
  
  #156977

  Condition

  Minor nicks to peripheries and verso, with fading and abrasions to some painted surfaces, otherwise intact and very good. Great remains of pigment across obverse.
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