A characterful Nayarit orangeware vessel in the form of a seated male musician. He wears a fancy banded headdress, and a triple strand necklace, and is depicted playing panpipes, whilst holding a rattle in his raised left hand. An opening to the vessel at the top behind the head. Some black painted highlights. A nice example.
 
Pre-Columbian Mexico Nayarit culture: circa 100 BC to 250 AD
 
Very Fine condition; complete and intact, with scattered strong mineral deposits.
Height 23 cms (9 ins)
 
Provenance: Private Westchester, New York collection. Assembled in the 1960's-1970's; to the family by descent.
 
The people on the west coast of Mexico developed a thriving culture between approximately 500 B.C. and 500 AD., in an area of large wetlands and dense jungle. They left no written language, and all that is known about them comes from their ceramic art, which, for its time, is rivalled only by the Han Dynasty in China. The Nayarit is one of the great unknown Mesoamerican cultures. It was a farming people whose society was revolved around the shaman, the main head of a religion in which the cult of the dead played a major role.