Female Figure

In the centuries between the fall of the Wari Empire and the rise of the Inca Empire, regional communities thrived in the Central Andes, developing distinctive visual traditions. From 1000 to 1475 CE, artists of the Chancay culture in central coastal Peru created a robust new ceramic style with an emphasis on figural pairs (see also MMA 1987.394.635 and 1987.394.636). Unlike other Andean pottery traditions, Chancay ceramics are relatively large.

This ceramic female figure, of a type sometimes called a cuchimilco, was made from a mold and painted with black over a white base slip (a suspension of pigments in a clay slurry). Chancay painting often appears to have been done quickly, as the black often drips outside of the borders of the design. On this ceramic, spots of black paint are visible below the right breast and on the right foot. Besides the simple black-on-white ceramic type seen here, Chancay ceramicists also painted figures with a dark brown pigment or left the natural red color of the clay exposed. Unlike ceramics from other coeval Peruvian cultures, the surface is somewhat granular because the clay was not burnished (the process in which the painted surface is rubbed with a flat stone or other tool before firing to achieve a smooth surface). Cuchimilcos always have short extended hands with no arms, prominent genitalia, navels, and well-modeled feet. The figures can stand, suggesting they may have been displayed before their deposition in tombs.

This figure wears a black cap with a geometric design along its bottom. Holes along the top of the cap may have originally served as attachment sites for ornaments such as feathers. The designs radiating from the eyes and under the chin suggest that body art—either painting or tattoos—was common at the time.

Further Reading

Bisulca, Christina, Liz Homberger, Aaron Steele, and Rebecca Stone. "Looking at Chancay Figurines." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 98, no. 1 (2024), pp. 6-23.

Cortéz, Vicente. "Arte Chancay: Reconstrucción ritual del mundo." Líneas Generales 3-4 (2020), pp. 8-25.

Hodnett, M. K. Moldes utilizado en la cerámica de Chancay: Técnicas en el arte antiguo Peru/Molds used in Ceramics of Chancay: Art techniques of Ancient Peru. Tallahassee, Rose Printing, 1978.

Morgan, Alexandra. The Pottery Figurines of Pre-Columbian Peru. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Ltd, 2017.