Bowl with Modeled Animal
Unknown Sicán artist, Lambayeque Valley, northern coast, Peru. Bowl with Modeled Animal, 900–1100 CE. Slip-painted ceramic, 5 ¼ x 5 ½ x 3 ¾ inches. Denver Art Museum Collection: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay A. Duff, 1986.407.
Bowl with Modeled Animal
Sicán (Lambayeque)
About A.D. 900–1100
Peru, north coast
Earthenware with slip and organic pigments
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay Duff, 1986.407
The large and prosperous Sicán (or Lambayeque) realm on Peru’s north coast incorporated extensive agricultural irrigation systems, and cities built with adobe bricks. Large-scale ceramic, textile, and metal workshops produced goods for local consumption as well as export. Sicán nobles and rulers were interred beneath massive adobe mounds with spectacular quantities of goods, including gold and silver vessels and ornaments, copper axes, and ceramic vessels.
While many Sicán ceramics were mass produced using press molds, this bowl appears to be hand-made. At its lip is a small animal, probably a dog, that seems to be trying to climb inside. Painted around the shoulder is a series of supernatural animals with spiky backs, and tails that end in heads. The creatures, which wear huge headdresses, have frontal or profile heads that represent the Sicán Lord – a deity or culture hero with comma-shaped eyes.
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