Pre-Columbian Cultures – A Quick Collector’s Guide… Item Number: 100025 $0.00

DescriptionSeveral weeks ago I wrote about the many reasons to collect Pre-Columbian art. This week a client emailed asking for a bit of information on the various cultures and to expound a bit on their various attributes. Well, being one who loves to expound, this sounded like a great topic for this week’s article. Quick note…upon starting this article it soon became apparent that covering even the major cultural centers was going to require more than one “blog.” As such, we will start with Peru, advance to the rest of South America and go north from there. Who knows when this may end!!??

I think most of us remember the “Cliff-Notes” version of the ancient American cultures we learned in our early school days. We all read about the Aztec, the Maya and the Inca cultures. Invariably, when a new collector comes on board the first cultures they want to see are these “big three.” While each of these cultures offers examples of wonderful art, they are certainly not the earliest, most prolific, nor necessarily the finest artists from the New World. In fact, I must admit personally that there are several cultures whose art I find much more “moving” and more to my taste. But let me reiterate, art is all about personal taste and what I like is not going to be what you like. Buy items that make YOU smile!

Here is my very abridged list of ancient cultures of Peru (primarily from south to north, earliest to latest);

• Paracas, southern Peru, sometimes called proto-Nazca, dating between 600 and 100 BC, known for pottery designs decorated with heavy resin-based pigments and incredible (but very rare) textiles.
• Nazca, southern Peru, dating between 0 and 600 AD. Known primarily for their highly skilled, brightly painted pottery stirrup vessels, keros, bowls, figural vessels and penchant for adding human trophy head-motifs to their artwork. Skilled weavers, they created some of the finest and best preserved textiles anywhere from the ancient world.
• Tihuanaco, Bolivia highlands (Lake Titicaca), southern Peru and northern Chile, dating between 0 and 900 AD. Known for their pottery keros, figural vessels, ollas and funnel-shaped vessels using muted earth-tones in very abstract geometric designs. Perhaps a bit more “klunky and unrefined” compared to other Peruvian pottery, it still carries its own charm and appeals to a number of collectors. The Tihuanaco also created fabulous polychrome (multi-colored) baskets and incredible textiles. Stone carvings, often in human head forms, are also available from this area, but can be quite pricy and rife with fakes.
• Huari or Wari, southern Peru, dating between 500 and 900 AD and co-existed with the Tihuanaco culture to their south and east. Huari potters are known for their use of polychrome decorations and world-class weavers, they often incorporated textile designs into their pottery. Similar in appearance to Tiahuanaco pottery (and again a bit on the klunky side), the Huari used muted earth tones and somewhat abstract zoomorphic and human-form designs. The Huari also produced fine wooden implements (known for their wooden snuff trays) and inlays using shells and stone.
• Chavin / Cupisnique, northern Peru. Still debated whether this is one culture with geographical differences, or two distinct cultures with artistic similarities. Most scholars agree with the dating of Cupisnique between1500 and 900 BC and Chavin between 900 and 200 BC. The Chavin/Cupisnique produced some of the earliest and finest potteries in South America. Credited with creating the “stirrup vessel” – bulbous jar with spout in the form of an equestrian stirrup, most often in deep brown, gray or black ranging in design from very simple to amazingly complex and almost “cubist” in appearance. Much of the pottery from this region features their toothy underworld god who ultimately morphed into the Moche demon god Ai Apec. Also known for highly skilled stone mace heads and stone cups carved with deeply incised decorations (again, very expensive and very often faked). Textiles are known from this region but are usually very fragmented and extremely rare – thus pricy.
• Salinar, northern Peru, dating between 200 BC and 200 AD. This little known culture occupied the north-coastal and north-central highland regions and was the transition artistically and culturally between the Cupisnique and Moche cultures. Producing exquisite potteries, the Salinar often used a rich kaolin slip, and continued and refined the use of the stirrup vessel form. More realistic in style than the Cupisnique, but less so than the Moche, most often using a single color but frequently producing potteries with a bi-chrome coloration. The Salinar were also skilled goldsmiths often making ornamentations for the body and face.
• Moche (from the ancient language Mochica), northern Peru, dating between 200 and 800 AD. Perhaps the single most dominant and artistically prolific culture South America has ever seen. Known as one of the most savage cultures ever, this savagery is often showcased in their art with scenes of warfare, captives, blood-letting and blood-drinking, systematic body dismemberment, flailing and finally decapitation or skull-bashing and death. Producing some of the finest pottery, gold, copper and textiles of any of the ancient cultures, the Moche artisans rank up there with any the ancient world has ever seen. Best known for their portrait vessels – the first example of artists creating realistic likenesses of real humans ever seen in the New World – the Moche also produced very realistic erotic vessels, vessels in animal-form, fine-line paintings, and created potteries that showed the Moche could be touching, loved their relationship with nature, feared the unknown, possessed a great sense of humorous and of course, could be incredibly brutal. In addition to pottery in numerous forms (with the stirrup vessel reining supreme), collectors flock to rare Moche textiles in vibrant colors and incredible technical execution, copper masks and implements and gold and silver ornamentation. As you might guess, I love Moche art!
• Sican / Lambayeque, northern Peru, dating between 750 and 1300 AD. Among the finest gold and silversmiths found in the ancient Americas, the Sican culture produced wonderful gold and silver keros (drinking vessels), masks, body ornamentation and objects for ceremonial use. Pottery from this region/culture is quite prolific with most examples created in blackware with other examples in bi-chrome. While fine examples of Sican pottery do exist, most lack the refinement of the earlier Moche with many forms and subjects being mass-produced with the most common subjects being Nylamp (underworld deity and successor to the Moche Ai Apec), birds, sea-life and native fruits.
• Chimu, northern Peru, Ca 1100 to 1450 AD. The Chimú are best known for their distinctive monochromatic (almost always black) pottery and fine metal working of copper, gold, silver, bronze, and tumbago (copper and gold). The pottery is often in the shape of a creature, or has a human figure sitting or standing on a cuboid bottle. Again, like the Sican culture, Chimu pottery is generally lacking the refined appeal of earlier Moche pottery, and as such is priced considerably lower than most Peruvian potteries with good examples available for well under $500. Gold and silver implements showed higher degrees of skill and artistic commitment and demand far higher prices. Chimu textiles were woven from camelid (llama, alpaca, guanaco and vicuna) and native cotton fibers and showed technical skill but often lack the artistic talent of earlier Moche textiles. The Chimu were conquered by the Inca in the mid-1400’s with a number of Chimu artists and potters brought to Cusco to work for their new Inca lords.
• Chancay, central-coastal Peru, dating between 1200 and 1450 AD, and best known for their enigmatic brown on buff pottery human figures called “cuchimilcos” and figural storage jars called “chinas.” Some of these vessels and figures can be quite large with chinas and even cuchimilcos exceeding 20 inches in height being not all that rare. Chancay textiles are also quite collectable, although again fairly simple in design, with the usual subjects being birds, animals and humans woven from cotton and camelid fibers.
• Inca, encompassing all of Peru with expansion into Bolivia and Chile to the south and Ecuador to the north and the largest culture in terms of size in the entire ancient New World. Dating from the 1200’s through the conquest by Pizarro in 1533, and even continuing to produce potteries in the native style after the Spanish conquest. Very popular among collectors, the Inca generally produced a higher quality and certainly more colorful pottery than its Chimu, Sican or Chancay predecessors, very high quality gold and silver objects (of those that did not get melted down to fund the Spanish war against England) and high-quality textiles showing great mastery of the loom. Among Inca potteries, the “aryballos” is perhaps the most recognized form with its pointed base, long neck and flared rim carried over the shoulders via a tump-line held by the forehead. Highly decorated examples can exceed 36” in height and can command large dollars. As is often the case, the closer to the cultural capital (Cusco) an item was created, generally the more exceptional it is in its artistic merits. Finally, another very collectable object most commonly attributed to the Inca are small stone canopas – fertility idols in the shape off llamas or alpaca, with receptacles in their back holding animal fat and often coca leaves - placed in the field to appeal to Pachamama and Pachapapa for healthy crops and livestock. Good canopas can bring thousands of dollars based on technical skill, size, rarity of the stone and condition.
• Other Peruvian cultures of note include Viru/Gallinazo, Vicus, Ica, Lima, Cajamarca, Recuay and Sihuas. These cultures are a little less-well known, but still produced objects of incredible beauty and technical skill.

For additional information on the fine art of Peru, I recommend “The Spirit of Ancient Peru – Treasures from the Museo Arqueologico Rafael Larco Herrera.” Filled with terrific photos, maps and information about the museum collection and these incredible ancient cultures. Next week, I’ll finish up South America.

Happy collecting!

Bob