ƒ GOBELET IN GOLD SICÁN ENV. 900-1100 AP. Height:... Lot 4

ƒ GOBELET IN GOLD SICÁN ENV. 900-1100 AP. Height: 24.2 cm. (9⅝ in.) $38000-49000 PROVENANCE Düsseldorf Art Fair, at the end of the 1970s European private collection, acquired from the latter in the 1980s SICÁN GOLD HEAD BEAKER, MIDDLE SICÁN Embossed with the classic Sicán Lord's countenance, probably a depiction of the mythical founder-deity Naymlap, with a recessed mouth showing bared, crossed fangs, large, rimmed comma-shaped eyes and pronounced ears, wearing an elaborate headdress incorporating a rounded cap secured at the back with a chevron-decorated band with a central medallion clasp and trimmed with small discs overlaid on the plaited coifure. The Sicán culture inhabited the lengthy north coast of Peru between about A.D. 750 and 1375. They succeeded the Moche and preceded the Inca Empire. By the Middle Sicán phase (A.D. 900-1100) the dynamic economy led to political and religious expansion with increased trade networks. This gold beaker resembles a typical Andean ceramic goblet or wooden quero (qero, kero). Through the Spanish Colonial period, these vessel forms were used in feasts for drinking corn beer, called chicha in Spanish. Sicán goldsmiths favored the use of sheet metal consisting of a gold-copper alloy; the copper provided for increased strength in sheet metal production. The artisans would work the sheet metal through annealing and hammering to shape the goblet form. Through the use of fgural molds, the Sicán created low to highrelief designs on the vessel surface, which are visually enhanced through the play of light and shadow. Sicán art is representational in style and religious in nature with the iconography dominated by a deity known as the "Sicán Lord". The Middle Sicán era produced enormous quantities of precious metal artifacts, many showing extraordinarily high craftsmanship. The scale and the range of metal use by the people of the Middle Sicán was un