Lot 1
Pre-Columbian, southern Peru, Inca hinterlands (Chucu), ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. A rare polychrome stone plaque vividly painted in mineral pigments of white, ochre, and red. On the left, a single yellow human figure stands amid a stippled ground populated with four quadrupeds - set above a decorative band of stepped fret motifs. The right half reveals a more complex arrangement: six stylized human figures interspersed with five animals, all animated above a concentric circle motif and another wide band of polychrome frets. The use of concentric forms, zigzags, and frets echoes Andean textile and ceramic design conventions, suggesting symbolic associations with fertility, landscape, and cosmology. Plaques of this type are rare survivals of Inca-period provincial ritual art, embodying both local aesthetics and broader imperial traditions. Their imagery likely carried ceremonial or mythological meaning, connecting daily life with spiritual and cosmological cycles. Size: 20" L x 0.75" W x 20.25" H (50.8 cm x 1.9 cm x 51.4 cm)
These ritual plaques are most commonly known in pottery, produced by deliberately smashing large ceramic vessels and painting the fragments for ceremonial use. More rarely, as in this example, they were fashioned from stone, yet the painted surface follows the same established tradition. Archaeological finds reveal such plaques in a wide variety of ritual contexts: beneath wall foundations, in graves, with animal sacrifices, and cached in striking natural features such as springs, rock hollows, and hilltops. They are often found in pairs, their painted surfaces placed face-to-face, sometimes wrapped in organic materials like leaves or even encased in sheets of gold. Although the tradition of creating tablets began centuries earlier, the period to which this example belongs marks the pinnacle of the artform - an era of agricultural intensification, expanding interregional trade networks, and the growing power of important clan confederations. With the arrival of the Inca, however, the tradition abruptly ceased. It is thought that the Inca, who consolidated their empire in part by controlling and sponsoring ritual practices, deliberately outlawed the making of these ritual plaques, seeing them as rivals to their own sanctioned sacrificial offerings of alpacas, chicha beer, and fine cloth.
Provenance: private Atlanta, Georgia, USA collection, acquired between 2020-2024; ex-Artemis Gallery; ex-private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-private Hillberg, collection, Sonoma County, California, USA, acquired between 1960 and 1970
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#197866
- Condition: Minor chips along peripheries and verso, with light fading to original pigmentation, and light encrustations, otherwise intact and excellent. Nice earthen deposits and traces of original pigmentation throughout. Mounted with modern metal bracket for display. Old inventory label on verso.
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