Nayarit Resist-Painted Bowl with Stylized Human Figures

Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Nayarit. A pottery bowl decorated in the negative resist technique, featuring flared walls and a red-slipped rim. The interior is painted with stylized seated human figures with raised arms, rendered in cream and red against a darkened ground and arranged in a repeating band around a plain central field. A cream line separates the figural band from the red rim. The exterior carries undulating zigzag lines in cream on a dark ground below a red band at the rim. After the bowl was fired and painted with its red and cream slips, the potter applied a resist, such as wax or another material that repels liquid, over the areas meant to stay light, painting it on in the shape of the design. The vessel was then coated with a dark, carbon-rich substance, often an organic liquid or smoke from a smudging fire, and gently reheated so the carbon bonded to the exposed surface. The heat melted or burned away the wax, or it was scraped off afterward, leaving the protected areas in their original light colors against the darkened ground. Item # 205606

Estimate:£188.38

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