The gentle humor and playfulness of this
extraordinary vessel shine across the ages and
across cultural boundaries. This comic fellow
with his distended cheeks and protruding ears,
whose head once contained an offering of food
or drink, charms us. It has been suggested that
he is chewing coca leaves, a stimulant still
popular in Peru today. Certainly it seems to have
kept him wide-awake through the centuries. A
masterpiece of Moche ceramic art, at once
observant of life and elegantly abstract.
- (K.097)
|
