Lot 85A
South America, Amazon River Valley, Peru, Shipibo, ca. 1950 to 1970. A gigantic, beautifully decorated polychrome human effigy vessel of a dramatically, corsetted form with a flared rim from the Shipibo-Conibo tribe, an indigenous people along the Ucayali River in the Amazon rainforest in Peru. Quite captivating, the neck of the vessel presents a single face with low-to-high relief ears and nose and painted slit eyes and mouth. Adorning the face and compressed round body are mesmerizing, mazelike linear and stylized geometric motifs, perhaps representing tattoos or body paint, all in chocolate brown and russet red on a creamy white ground, the flared rim and lower half of the vessel in rich russet red. A wonderful example from the Shipibo presenting a rather unusual form. Size: 23.2" Diameter x 25.8" H (58.9 cm x 65.5 cm)
These symmetrical geometric patterns, known as kene, are not only said to represent the paths of life, but are also inspired by nature, such as in the coils and scaled skin of a snake, which are also symbolic of the coiling of the pottery as the vessel is constructed. Layers of zigzag patterns arch below the jutting chin of the face, possibly representing a beard or collar necklace, while black resin embellishes the interior walls of the jar.
The Shipibo-Conibo tribe are an indigenous people along the Ucayali River in the Amazon rainforest in Peru. Shipibo vessels are visually distinctive and instantly recognizable, the result of a tempering technology that is millennia old, allowing for some of the largest, thinnest-walled vessels produced in the New World. These vessels are made by Shipibo women in a style that grew out of the pre-Columbian Marajoara. The chomo is a vessel that can be placed into a hole dug in the ground to store and ferment masato, a ceremonial beverage used in ceremonies like the Joni-Ati, an initiation ritual to mark a girl's passage into womanhood. The Shipibo, unlike many other Amazonian tribes, are matriarchal. This massive vessel would have played an important role in the life of these fascinating people.
Shipibo art generally appears in multimedia enveloped in elaborate geometric designs in a baroque trilevel style. Decorated first, the upper level is comprised of broad form lines in rectilinear (pontequeneya) and curvilinear (mayaqueneya) patterns. Artists are inspired by covering her eyelids with the leaves of an iponquene plant - named after a small but complexly patterned armor-headed catfish - in an effort to absorb their intricate tracery, as well as via dreams and visions. The original designs were from hallucinogenic visions of shamans using ayahuasca (or nishi) and strong tobacco.
According to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, "In mythic times these patterns covered everything - the sky, trees, huts, people, animals, et cetera - in a continuous tissue of design. But due to the misdeeds of failed protohumans, this idyllic union ruptured and differentiated into floating, superimposed planes: Nete shama (the sky world), Mai (the earth world), and Jene shama (the subaquatic underworld). Simultaneously, periodicity (day and night, or time), mortality, and speciation appeared. And the geometric lineaments ruptured. Now they appear only on specific design fields, such as the upper parts of fineware pottery, people's faces, or the blades of war clubs. All these designs are pre-existent; the artist has only to grasp and fix them in her mind (shinan picotai, 'the thoughts emerge'), lay them over the design field, and cut where they match that field, letting the rest of the design fade back into invisibility. The visible design remains as a window into the vast reticulate intricacy of the universe."
Provenance: private Truchas, New Mexico, USA collection, acquired at Litchfield County Auctions, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA in 2017; ex-Washington, Connecticut, USA collection
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#189258
- Condition: Professionally repaired with restoration and repainting; all done very well. Light surface wear as commensurate with age, but otherwise, very nice presentation with great detail and pigments. Earthen deposits to interior. "ANTISUYO / HAND MADE IN PERU" label on underside of base.
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