Pre-Columbian, Central America, Panama, Gran Cocle, Macaracas or Conte type, ca. 800 to 1000 CE. A beautiful, hand-built pottery olla with a rounded, hemispherical body with a carinated upper rim, a sloped shoulder, a cylindrical neck, and a flared, discoid rim. The highly burnished, beige-hued surfaces are densely decorated with panels containing large, abstract creatures with enormous mouths, clawed feet, and ovoid eyes, with additional columns of minimalist crabs, and negative-space arrows. The vessel's neck bears an additional pair of abstract zoomorphs separated by arrow-shaped motifs, and all are illustrated with black, brick-red, and purple pigments. A stylized and intriguing example of Cocle artistry! Size: 10.8" W x 14.625" H (27.4 cm x 37.1 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 Tonosí pottery styles are identified by their use of three paint colors which were black, red and white (or cream). The later Cubitá 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)

Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-Merrin Gallery, New York, New York, USA, acquired in the mid-1990s

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#164568

Repaired from multiple large pieces, with restoration in some scattered areas, and resurfacing with overpainting along new material and break lines. Abrasions and fading to original pigment, with encrustations inside the body. Great craquelure across original pigment.