Pre-Columbian, northern Peru, Inca Empire, ca. 1470 to 1532 CE. A hand-built and highly burnished pottery aryballos with a stylized anthropomorphic head comprising the neck and a llama wrapped around the back of the shoulders. The rotund vessel rests atop a tapered conical foot and has a pair of semicircular handles, a rounded shoulder, and a squat 'neck' surmounted by a flared rim. The face peers forward with ovoid eyes and wears the rim as an eccentric 'hat' while holding the forelegs and hindlegs of the llama with both arms. The llama's raised head displays a petite perforation along the neck, and the entire vessel is covered in orange-red slip pigment. Size: 8.6" W x 7.5" H (21.8 cm x 19 cm)

Provenance: private Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA collection

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#156694

Repairs to a few small areas of verso, with resurfacing and overpainting along break lines. Minor abrasions and encrustations to base, body, llama head, and rim, with fading to original pigment, and softening to some finer details on llama and human heads. Light earthen deposits and remains of original pigment throughout.