Code: 2642
Description: An orange terracotta red-slipped tripod vessel with short neck and two small flattened loop handles extending from the rim to the shoulder. The vessel is decorated with a closely spaced parallel series of thin white bands below the neck, a series of similar vertical bands extending from the upper shoulder to the rim at points around the neck, and oblique and cross-hatched white bands in four groups equidistant around the upper mid-body. Some dark staining to the underside of the bowl, minor surface wear, particularly to the feet and minor chips, otherwise condition good.
Size: 145 mm/5.7 ins. high and 150 mm/5.9 ins. in diameter at the mid-bowl
Culture: Costa Rica
Date: c. 800-1500 A.D.
Provenance: Ex Desmond Morris (born 1928) Collection, Oxford, and acquired at Sotheby’s London on 27 July 1971.
Background: Desmond Morris is a renown author (best known for his best seller ‘The Naked Ape’ published in 1967), zoologist, surrealist painter and passionate collector, noted for his collection of ancient Cypriote pottery, published as a sumptuous volume by Phaidon in 1985 (‘The Art of Ancient Cyprus’) which although out-of-print remains the best reference available for ancient Cypriote pottery. He first started collecting postage stamps as a small boy and then moved on to fossils and minerals, then seashells, then tribal art, then modern art, then ancient Cypriote art, amassing some 1100 fine Cypriote objects. He then moved on to collect Russian icons and amassed a fine collection of Precolumbian art, then he moved on to Chinese art and finally assembled a collection of Algerian Berber pottery. He bought almost all his pieces at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in London, when there was far more on the market than there is now, although he also bought some objects from dealers in London, New York and Europe. Following the death of his wife, Desmond sold much of his remaining collections (his famed Cypriote art collection had been sold much earlier to finance other collecting interests) and moved to a smaller house in Ireland to live near his family. We were fortunate to acquire a number of his Precolumbian pieces. Desmond always regarded it important to have one’s collection on display around you and not shut away in cupboards. His advice - only buy items that catch your eye and are somehow special. Perfect advice from a true connoisseur.
A rare opportunity to buy an object from the collection of one of Britains’ most distinguished private collectors
