Stirrup-spout bottle with squash

In the first millennium of the Common Era, communities transformed the strip of desert between the Pacific Ocean and the Andean highlands into a rich agricultural landscape through the invention and expansion of complex irrigation systems. Peru’s North Coast was dotted with monumental buildings made of mudbrick that were the center of ceremonial life in antiquity, even before the invention of pottery and metallurgy. Home to multiple artistic traditions over time, including the Moche, artists of the North Coast achieved new heights technologically and aesthetically.

Moche artists were close observers of the natural world, and their early ceramics often depicted animals and other subjects with considerable fidelity. Some Moche ceramics were shaped like plants, often fruits or vegetables. This bottle takes the form of a loche, a kind of butternut squash. Made before molds were commonly used, effigies such as the present example demonstrate an expansion of the sculptural possibilities of clay vessels. The smooth stirrup spout creates a formal contrast to the naturalistically rendered fruit with its bumpy surface, and the plant’s curved neck and stem elegantly echo the vessel’s spout.