Footed Dish with Animal Motifs
(Ancient Americas )
This bowl shows an enormous bird, perhaps a condor, rendered in white on a black background. It likely had mythical significance, now lost, for the indigenous peoples of the area.
Dishes on short, ring-shaped bases were common in the Nariño region straddling the border between Ecuador and Colombia. They were carefully shaped, burnished (carefully polished with a stone), and painted with different colors of slip, a thinned out clay. Many of the Nariño vessels show highly abstracted patterns, like this one.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.
Economos Works of Art [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; John G. Bourne, 1990s, by purchase; by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 2017.
Geographies
Ecuador
(Place of Origin)
Colombia (Place of Origin)
Measurements
H: 3 1/8 x Diam: 8 3/16 in. (7.94 x 20.83 cm)
Credit Line
Bequest of John G. Bourne, 2017
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
2009.20.279