Pottery Vessel 0014

Description

Mesoamerican Baroque

Gran Nicoya Cultural Region – ‘Late Period’ : 1200 CE – European contact

Typical of later Nicoya pieces, this vase exemplifies Mesoamerican ‘baroque’ – such unexpected design finesse and tendency for complex, almost overly-wrought design-work. All space is exploited to the maximum and figures are so stylized as to be rendered practically un-identifiable.

Featured in the surface depictions are symbolic references to Mesoamerican cultural cosmology showing such cultural influences that started to manifest in today’s northwestern Costa Rica around the years 800-900 CE. This fine object must have been of particular importance for the afterlife of a clearly important personage. All treasures from these civilizations that can be found in museums and private collections today were excavated and taken from tombs of the pre-European elite that subsisted in this region of today’s Costa Rica.

• Size: 9″ x 13 1/2″ (23cm x 34.5cm)
• Pre-Columbian Pottery
• 1200 CE – European contact