Nicoya & Gran Chiriqui Painted Ceramic Jar Group - Geometric Banding

Pre-Columbian, Costa Rica / Panama, Nicoya and Gran Chiriqui. Three burnished pottery jars slipped in warm orange-red. Two are squat globular forms with everted collar rims, their shoulders belted with painted geometric registers: opposed triangles, stepped frets, and combed groups of vertical lines in dark brown and iron red. The third is a broad, low-shouldered vessel with a flaring lip, its body carrying a sparser scheme of encircling lines and pendant strokes. Vessels of this scale served as containers for liquids, pigment, or foodstuffs in domestic use, and frequently accompanied the dead as grave furniture. The abstract banding belongs to the shared painted vocabulary that linked the Nicoya peninsula with the Gran Chiriqui zone to the south. Greater Nicoya, spanning northwestern Costa Rica and Pacific Nicaragua, and Gran Chiriqui, straddling southern Costa Rica and western Panama, were two of the principal ceramic provinces of the Intermediate Area, the corridor of chiefdoms lying between Mesoamerica and the Andes. Nicoya potters are best known for polychrome wares influenced by Mesoamerican iconography; Gran Chiriqui workshops favored red-slipped monochrome and bichrome vessels with linear and stepped ornament. Neither region developed writing or monumental architecture, so ceramics, jade, and goldwork carry most of what is known of their social and ritual life. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 204265

View all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorPorcelain & Pottery