Figurative Vase, Chorrera Culture (1300 - 300 Bc), Ecuador, Pre-columbian Ceramics

Ceramic vase covered with a reddish and brownish glaze. In the upper part of the container, a rounded human figure, with a facial modeling very characteristic of the Chorrera culture: closed eyes, delicate facial features, rounded earrings and a specific helmet, also described by some specialists as being, perhaps, a type of hairstyle. The lower part of the container has the shape of a rounded cube with engraved decoration.

Ecuador, Chorrera culture (1300 - 300 BC).

Length approx. 19.5 cm, width approx. 11.2 cm, height approx. 11.4 cm.

State of preservation as it appears in the photographs, slight crack on the underside.

Other anthropomorphic vessels:
https://vilcek.org/art/chorrera-recumbent-figure-on-rectangular-base/
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/315062
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/anthropomorphic-vessel-0001/FgGU3iu24P1wsQ

The vessel comes from the large collection of a Polish engineer who worked on road construction in Ecuador in the 1970s-80s.

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The Chorrera culture (c. 1300 - 300 BC) is, after the Valdivia and Machalilla cultures, the culture in which artists made ceramic vessels. However, it was not until the Chorrera culture that artists developed so many types of vessels and diverse representations of people and animals. Ceramics could have a practical use, such as bottles to hold drinks, but they very often had religious or ritual significance. Figurines or bottles with additional small holes also served as musical instruments: they could produce a sound similar to a whistle, and two-chambered vessels also produced a sound when liquids were poured between the compartments. The representations of animals and people by artists of the Chorrera culture are quite naturalistic, but with some simplifications and more or less stylization. In the region of present-day Ecuador, the Chorrera civilization was followed by a period of regional development, during which several civilizations developed, including La Tolita-Tumaco, Jama Coaque, Bahía, and Guangala. The ceramics of each of these cultures developed many characteristics, often moving away from the "classic" and naturalistic ceramics of the Chorrera culture.