Camay Vessel

Alfonso Jimenez, New York 

Fine Arts of Ancient Lands, acquired from the above in 1976

European Private Collection, acquired from the above in the 1980s

Gillett Griffin, et al., eds., Ancient American Art, 3500 BC-AD 1532: Masterworks of the Pre-Columbian Era, Milan, 2011, p. 191

The curvaceous vessel is painted with a bold pattern of swirling arabesques and curvilinear motifs covering the surface.

Little is known about the people who produced Camay ceramics but these sculptural vessels seem to have been used in a ritual context. As with other inhabitants of Amazonia, large ceramics were receptacles for secondary burials.