Pre-Columbian, Northern Peru, Late Sican (Lambayeque) to early Chimu, ca. 900 to 1100 CE. A wonderful blackware pottery bottle with a smiling bat that displays its chompers and spreads its wings while perched atop the vessel's body, standing against the strap handle. This is a whistling vessel that still functions and boast rich iconography. In the Pre-Columbian world, nocturnal bats were understood as ominous creatures - the only winged mammal that flies, navigating via sonar, through the darkness of night, earily roosting in shadowy overhangs, quite befitting of a creature of the underworld. Size: 7-5/8" x 6-1/4".

Provenance: Ex-private collection of Lupita Tovar, a silent screen actress of the 1930's, Bel Air, CA.

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#110034

Chips as seen, else excellent with working whistle