Mar 15
#Baturday 🦇:
Cupisnique artist; Tembladera, North Coast, Peru
Bottle with leaf-nosed bat head, 1200-800 BCE
Ceramic, cinnabar
on display at The Met (1978.412.210)
“Potters occasionally applied red pigments to vessels after firing to create a more dramatic visual effect. Iron-based ochres were common, but sometimes potters used cinnabar, a mercury-rich mineral, to create bright reds. Cinnabar was imported to the North Coast from Huancavelica, a highland region some five hundred miles south of where these vessels were allegedly found.”
