Pre-Columbian, Costa Rica, Nicoya, ca. 600 to 800 CE. A beautiful polychrome tripod vessel comprised of a deep bowl supported by three hollow sculpted anthropomorphic heads with painted details in addition to containing petite rattle balls. The heads have perforations horizontally through their necks on the backsides where rattles were placed; and they still issue sound. The underside of the bowl and under the carinated edge, contains solid bands and wavy lines of red, black, and orange on a creamy white ground. Red and black linear bands accentuate the upper shoulder walls dividing the exterior into panels painted with alternating abstract zoomorphic beings and linear shapes. The interior is embellished by a red slip. An imaginative piece! Size: 6" Diameter x 4" H (15.2 cm x 10.2 cm)

Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex Jane Susskind-Narins collection, acquired at Sotheby's New York "Antiquities, Pre Columbian, Ethnographic and Later Works of Art" auction (sale no. 4807Y, February 24, 1982, lot 115)

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#163861

Surface chips and nicks to rim and tripod heads. Tiny cavities and chips to interior basin. Fading and losses to pigments on body and heads. Old inventory label on base. Rattle balls are still contained in all three heads!