Pre-Columbian, Central America, El Salvador, Maya, Copador, Late Classic Period, ca. 550 to 900 CE. An elaborate, hand-built pottery cylinder vessel painted with a pair of intriguing, anthropomorphic figures surrounded by registers of glyphic forms. The vessel presents with a flat base, smooth walls, and a minimalist, red-ringed rim that encircles the wide mouth. Two exterior panels each portray a highly stylized, left-facing figure in a nearly prone position on his knees and elbows while wearing a discoidal loincloth ornament and intricate chest regalia. The figures' white faces are accentuated by crimson lips and ornate headdresses. The figural panels are separated with two columns of orange and brown pseudoglyphs, and an upper pseudoglyph program bears red spirals and disembodied human heads. Size: 6.1" Diameter x 7.5" H (15.5 cm x 19 cm)

These ancient glyphs may convey an important date, a secret message, or simply be part of the vessel's aesthetic program. According to Dorie Reents-Budet, "One of the remarkable characteristics of Classic Maya painted pottery is the use of writing as more than simply a way to communicate ideas. As in the Islamic tradition, Maya artists employed calligraphy as a prime design feature and as an integral part of the total composition… The hieroglyphic texts also were used as compositional devices, placed specifically to help define the internal tensions, balances and divisions within the pictorial field." (Dorie Reents-Budet, "Painting the Maya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic Period", Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994, page 12)

Provenance: ex-private Schuetz collection, Florida, USA; ex-Artemis Gallery, Louisville, Colorado, USA, June 17th, 2021, lot 152; ex-Barakat Gallery, Beverly Hills, California, USA, acquired prior to 2000

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#174309

Professionally repaired and restored with some overpainting to interior and over break lines; all done very well so that break lines are barely discernible. Some areas of applied pigment to look like manganese, though many deposits are real. A few minor nicks. Nice preservation to figural motifs and pseudoglyphs throughout.