This finely made bowl features a full, round shape with a wide mouth. Made of a kaolin-like clay, its walls are thin and burnished to a high gloss. Although undecorated, the pleasing color variation on the outer surface ranges from beige to grey to light brown and orange-red. These early Olmec bowls typically have a globular shape with a small opening at the top. A potter carefully built the thin-walled vessels using a coil technique with a kaolin-like clay, and finishing them with a light-colored slip and burnishing the surface, which displays small pitted losses. The vessel type is known as a tecomate (“gourd”), named after the gourds that inspired its original form. Some of the earliest ceramic vessels in Mesoamerica took the form of gourds captured in the more durable material of fired clay. Tecomates were important receptacles for community feasts, and many were subsequently placed in burials as important funerary offerings. For related example see Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number: 2014.244.3 Medium: Clay Dimensions: Height: 3 3/8 inches (8.5 cm), Width: 4 1/4 inches (10.8 cm) Condition: Two small stable hairline cracks along the upper half of the body, and some expected surface pitting, otherwise intact and in very good condition. Provenance: Private Florida collection. Ex. Barry Kernerman, Toronto, ex. Samuel Dubiner collection, Tel Aviv, Israel, acquired 1960’s.
