
+FIGURAL VESSEL, Chorrera culture (1300 - 300 BC), Ecuador, pre-Columbian pottery.
Ceramic vessel covered with reddish and brownish glaze. In the upper part of the vessel a fully plastic human figure with rounded shapes, with very characteristic facial modeling for the Chorrera culture: closed eyes, delicate facial features, round earrings and a specific helmet or type of hairstyle. The lower part of the vessel in the form of a rounded cube with engraved decoration.
Description
Ecuador, Chorrera culture (1300 - 300 BC).
Length approx. 19.5 cm, width approx. 11.2 cm, height approx. 11.4 cm.
Condition as shown in the photos, slight cracking on the bottom.
Other anthropomorphic vessels:
https://vilcek.org/art/chorrera-recumbent-figure-on-rectangular-base
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/315062
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/anthropomorphic-vessel-0001/FgGU3iu24P1wsQ
The vessel comes from the large collection of a Polish engineer who worked on road construction in Ecuador in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Chorrera culture (ca. 1300 - 300 BC) was another culture after the Valdivia and Machalilla cultures in which artists made ceramic vessels. However, it was only the artists of the Chorrera culture who developed so many types of vessels and diverse representations of people and animals. Ceramics could have practical applications, e.g. bottles used to store drinks, but very often they had religious or ritual significance. Figurines or bottles with additional small holes also served as musical instruments: they could produce sound on the basis of a whistle, and two-chambere vessels also the sound of pouring liquids between chambers. The representations of animals and people by Chorrera culture artists are quite naturalistic, but with a greater or lesser degree of stylization. In the area of today's Ecuador, after the Chorrera civilization, a period of regional development occurred, where several civilizations developed, including La Tolita -Tumaco, Jama Coaque, Bahía and Guangala. The ceramic products of each of these cultures developed many characteristic features, often departing from the "classical" and naturalistic pottery of the Chorrera culture.