Artwork Page for Vessel with Abstract Heads

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Vessel with Abstract Heads

100 BCE–700 CE

Peru, South Coast, Nasca

Medium
earthenware with colored slips
Measurements
Overall: 10.4 x 14 cm (4 1/8 x 5 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
James Albert Ford Memorial Fund 1946.279
Public Domain
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Location
232 Andean
Print

Description

Late Nasca supernatural depictions became abstract, detailed, and focused on the head. In this vessel's central register, for instance, a deity is reduced to two mask-like faces, edged by volutes and linked by tongues; the only remains of a body are the hands. The lower register carries a similar image, and the upper register has severed human heads.
A bulbous cream earthenware vessel tapers toward a wide rim, featuring three horizontal bands. The top red band contains repeating cream geometric shapes. In two wider bands below, large stylized heads with radiating appendages repeat in red, gray, and dark brown. These mask-like figures have simple facial features and limb-like extensions across the cream surface. Dark outlines define the earth-toned patterns, which encircle the vessel in a rhythmic sequence.

Vessel with Abstract Heads

100 BCE–700 CE

Peru, South Coast, Nasca

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