Lot 163B
Pre-Columbian, Peru (North Coast), Moche Culture, ca. 100 to 700 CE. A rare depiction of a shaman transforming into a bat, standing atop a round-bodied stirrup vessel. The shaman has fantastic details: he is holding a stirrup vessel in one hand and a bowl in the other; he has bat-like ears and wings, with a human-like face. He wears a white-painted shirt and headdress. He stares straight ahead, eyes and mouth open wide. Incised lines give details to the wings. The body of the vessel is painted in four wide bands of alternating dark red and creamy white. The wide, curved stirrup rises from behind the shaman and the back of the vessel; it is topped by a tall, cylindrical spout. Size: 7.25" L x 5.2" W x 9.55" H (18.4 cm x 13.2 cm x 24.3 cm)
Bats in the pre-Columbian world were associated with the underworld and death, and probably represented the darker side of the human spirit. In many Moche ceramic interpretations, as here, bats hold tools for making funerary offerings and the bloodletting of human sacrifices. The bowl held here may allude to catching the blood of a sacrificial victim. Lacking written sources, we have to guess at the meaning of Moche figures, but it is generally accepted that they believed in a liminal state between life and death that could be accessed by transformational beings - shamans with zoomorphic qualities, like the bat-shaman here.
Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex Dr. Ernst Fisher collection, Germany
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#126821
- Condition: Shaman has been reattached and repaired, as has spout. Overpainting on repair line around feet and also on the spout.
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