Large globular vessel; Nazca Huari culture, Peru,... Lot 43

Large globular vessel; Nazca Huari culture, Peru, 1500-100 BC. Polychrome pottery. It has restitutions and repainting on fracture lines. Measurements: 55.5 x 40 x 41 cm. A large Huari vessel richly decorated with polychromy. The piece has been designed in an anthropomorphic manner, with the neck of the piece serving as the face of the main character. This area is notable for the relief motifs such as the nose, lips and ears, which serve as small handles on the vessel and are also decorated as earflaps, indicating the social rank of the person depicted. In the shoulder area a black and white checkerboard ornamentation serves as a necklace, while the belly shows the legs and arms of the protagonist, who holds a Tumiz and a small trophy head in his hands. The ensemble is completed with polychrome ornaments in the form of peanuts. The Huari (or Wari) culture flourished in the central Andes between the 7th and 13th centuries AD, extending as far as the present-day Peruvian departments of Lambayeque, Arequipa and Cuzco. Their pottery, in constant evolution throughout the history of this culture, presents different styles, and includes all kinds of vessels and other objects, many of them zoomorphic or anthropomorphic, generally pieces for ceremonial use.Huari pottery was influenced by three cultures: the Nazca (varied polychromy), the Huarpa (construction techniques) and the Tiahuanaco (pictorial motifs). In fact, scholars claim that the Huari is the synthesis of these three Andean cultures. The oldest Huari pieces are large in size, with a clear Tiahuanaco influence, although little by little the objects became smaller and mass-produced. The characteristic motifs of Huari ceramics include symbolic brushstrokes, representations of animals, mythological beings and mythical beings with feline heads.