© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Michael McKelvey.

ClassificationsArt of the Americas

Blackware Urpu (Long-Necked Jar) with Bird Motif

AAT Object Form/FunctionUrppus

Place CreatedPeru, South America

CultureChimu/Inka

PeriodLate Horizon

Date1450-1540 CE

MediumCeramic

Credit LineGift of William C. and Carol W. Thibadeau

Dimensions7 1/2 x 7 1/8 in. (19.1 x 18.1 cm)

Object number1988.012.001

Label TextThe vast Inka empire stretched from southern Colombia to central Chile. It encompassed high mountains and arid wastelands and over ten million subjects, making it the largest political unit in the world at the time. The Inka produced art with shapes that were easily recognizable by the many ethnic groups they controlled, like the long-necked storage vessel called an urpu [oor-poo]. They paid their workers in food and drink, dispensed at huge feasts, so fancy serving dishes were important both practically and symbolically. One key to Inka success was to allow local artists to decorate the official forms in their own traditional ways. A Cuzco-style urpu is polychrome, yet Chimu/Inka ones like this one are blackwares, the favored technique of the North Coast. The Chimu, conquered by the Inka ca. AD 1470, also took a more sculptural approach, as seen in the raised bird patterns.
Exhibition HistoryPre-Columbian Art from the Collection of Paul A. Clifford and William C. Thibadeau, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, February 13 - April4, 1971
Seeing with New Eyes: Pre-Columbian Art from the Thibideau Collection, Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology, March 4 - October 13, 1992
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11, 1993 - 2001
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 13, 2002 - June 2012
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, February 9, 2013 - March 13, 2019
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, July 2, 2019 - Present
Published ReferencesPre-Columbian Art from the Collections of Paul A. Clifford and William C. Thibadeau (Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1971), plate XLIX.
Rebecca Stone-Miller, Seeing With New Eyes: Highlights of the Michael C. Carlos Museum Collection of Art of the Ancient Americas (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2002), 252, figure 566.
Rebecca Stone, Art of the Andes: From Chavin to Inca. 3rd Edition (London: Thames and Hudson, 2012), 238, figure 198.

ProvenanceEx coll. William (1920-2002) and Carol (1921-2019) Thibadeau, Atlanta, Georgia, purchased 1970.

Status

On view

Collections