I've had a few pieces of Shipibo pottery but am not at all an expert; I just fell in love with the surface decoration and now keep an eye out for pieces. I am not entirely sure the age of this hand-formed and hand-painted bowl; most of what one sees dates from the early to mid-20th century, as would be my guess with this one, which seems likely on the earlier side though I am not completely certain.
The Shipibo-Conibo, an indigenous people living along the Ucayali river in the Amazon basin east of the Andes, have a long tradition of creating pottery and textiles with patterns that reflect their spiritual beliefs. The labyrinthine geometric designs on pottery pieces like this one have a relationship to their cosmology, and also to sound: the ethnologist Angelika Gebhart-Sayer has termed these patterns “visual music”...“the Shipibo can listen to a song or chant by looking at the designs, and inversely paint a pattern by listening to a song…” Further, as opposed to the being confined to the surface of a vessel or textile, to the Shipibo "the patterns extend far beyond these borders and permeate the entire world.” (credit: Howard G. Charing; source: Indigo Arts.
5 1/2" in diameter and 2 3/8" t. This bowl shows age and use, with a few chips to the surface and a few around the rim. Personally I've really come to embrace such flaws on pieces like this, perceiving them as adding to the aura of things that are already charged with history and tradition and made to be used.
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