Lot 114
Pre-Columbian, Highlands (Chiapas, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador), Maya Late Classic Period, ca. 600 CE. A large, orangeware plate with rounded tripod legs and an unusual decorative scalloped ridge on the underside. The interior center of the bowl depicts a standing priest, posed dynamically as if dancing, with a well-drawn face and head in the classic Maya style and huge feathered bracelets and clothing. Feathers were reserved for the highest ranking members of society. Around the center is a band of glyphs spaced around half of the rim; the other half is painted a darker orange and unadorned, which is also an unusual and rare choice - Mayan art is often symmetrical. The exterior, including the scalloped fringe, is unpainted. Size: 13.45" W x 3.25" H (34.2 cm x 8.3 cm)
The Maya Classic phase is so named because it was the peak of their artistic and cultural achievements. Part of this, as in many societies, included highly specialized consumable goods. Elaborate plates like this one were designed to be instantly distinguishable from those used for everyday eating or drinking - not just in decoration, but also in quantity produced, making this a much rarer find than a piece of domestic pottery. Instead, a bowl like this one would be ritually "sacrificed" by having a hole put through its center; it would then be placed into a tomb as an offering.
Provenance: private D. C. collection, California, USA; D. C. is an Emmy Award winning Hollywood writer and Executive Producer, purchased at Arte Primitivo, Dec 1999
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#126442
- Condition: Repaired from two large pieces. A stable crack on one rim. Nice pigment remaining, with deliberate perforation in the center of the bowl (a "kill hole"). Another near-perforation near that one with loss to pigment and clay that does not fully puncture the bowl.
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