Pre-Columbian, North to North Central Coast Peru, ca. 1200 to 1470 CE. An attractive blackware mold-made stirrup vessel adorned with a small temple step motif where the spout meets the stirrup and a perky bird perched atop the rectangular (usually referred to as square) base favored by the coastal Chimu artisans. Birds were cherished in the Pre-Columbian world as sky animals associated with the celestial realm -- the sun, the moon, and Venus -- where they were thought to act as messengers between the deities and humankind. Size: 4-1/5" x 5-3/4" (10.7 x 14.6 cm).

Blackware is the term given to pottery which is black in color due to a firing process rather than the application of black-pigmented paints or slips. We call this process reduction firing, because the amount of oxygen is reduced during the firing. Of course, fire needs oxygen to thrive, so it searches elsewhere finding oxygen in the clay itself, bound in the chemical compounds within. With this, a magical transformation occurs as the chemical formula of the clay changes. The rather beauteous result is that the once red clay becomes black pottery.

Provenance: Ex-private Leonard Collection, Virginia, USA, acquired before 1979

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#110730

Repair at junction where bird meets stirrup spout.