Standing Woman Vessel750–1600 CE

On view:

David Geffen Galleries, Ancestral Ceramics from Panama and Colombia

No image

Title: Standing Woman Vessel
Culture: Nariño or Carchi
Place Made: Colombia, Nariño, Capuli style
Date Made: 750–1600 CE
Style: Capuli
Medium: Earthenware with resist-painted slip
Dimensions: Height: 16.6 x Width: 7.5
Credit Line: The Muñoz Kramer Collection, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost and Stephen and Claudia Muñoz-Kramer
Accession Number: M.2007.146.128
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes: Whether this explicitly female figure is naked and adorned with bodypaint, or the resist-painted decoration is meant to represent a textile skirt, is unclear, but it seems to have been usual for women of the Nariño culture to go bare-chested, wearing only a short, patterned skirt (see also M.2007.146.115). Embellishing the body with paint, dress, or other adornments was a symbolically significant practice for many Indigenous groups of South America, indicating a person’s social status and identity, and marking important life events and rites of passage. Particular patterns or materials for bodypaint were considered to have protective properties against evil spirits or illness, and still are by many Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

On view:

David Geffen Galleries, Ancestral Ceramics from Panama and Colombia

No image

Title: Standing Woman Vessel
Culture: Nariño or Carchi
Place Made: Colombia, Nariño, Capuli style
Date Made: 750–1600 CE
Style: Capuli
Medium: Earthenware with resist-painted slip
Dimensions: Height: 16.6 x Width: 7.5
Credit Line: The Muñoz Kramer Collection, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost and Stephen and Claudia Muñoz-Kramer
Accession Number: M.2007.146.128
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes: Whether this explicitly female figure is naked and adorned with bodypaint, or the resist-painted decoration is meant to represent a textile skirt, is unclear, but it seems to have been usual for women of the Nariño culture to go bare-chested, wearing only a short, patterned skirt (see also M.2007.146.115). Embellishing the body with paint, dress, or other adornments was a symbolically significant practice for many Indigenous groups of South America, indicating a person’s social status and identity, and marking important life events and rites of passage. Particular patterns or materials for bodypaint were considered to have protective properties against evil spirits or illness, and still are by many Indigenous peoples of the Americas.