
+FIGURAL VESSEL, Chorrera culture (1300 - 300 BC), Ecuador, pre-Columbian pottery.
Figural vessel made of ceramic covered with red and brown glaze. It could have served as a bottle for storing liquids. Typically for representations of figures from the Chorrera culture, it is difficult for us to determine the gender of the person. A seated figure with rounded shapes and a calm face with round earrings characteristic of the Chorrera culture and a type of headgear or a specific hairstyle.
Description
Ecuador, Chorrera culture (1300 - 300 BC).
Height 20.5 cm, width 13.8 cm, depth 13 cm.
Condition visible in the photos, cracks.
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 a sound on the basis of a whistle, and two-chamber vessels also produced a sound when pouring liquids.between chambers. The representations of animals and people by Chorrera culture artists are quite naturalistic, but with some simplifications and 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 ceramics of the Chorrera culture.