A manual of pottery and porcelain for American collectors . wn, everything being wrought byhand. The ware is generally thin and light, being of adark brown or blackish color: the surface has a peculiarmetallic appearance, as if it had been purposely polished,or become so by long use. In the vicinity of the IncasTerritory it is most abundant, it frequently being associ-ated with their tombs and burial places. Throughoutthe whole inhabited portion of South America it is INTROD UCTION. 15 still found in considerable quantities, as also in CentralAmerica and Mexico, and as far north as Texas, wher
A manual of pottery and porcelain for American collectors . wn, everything being wrought byhand. The ware is generally thin and light, being of adark brown or blackish color: the surface has a peculiarmetallic appearance, as if it had been purposely polished,or become so by long use. In the vicinity of the IncasTerritory it is most abundant, it frequently being associ-ated with their tombs and burial places. Throughoutthe whole inhabited portion of South America it is INTROD UCTION. 15 still found in considerable quantities, as also in CentralAmerica and Mexico, and as far north as Texas, wheretraces of it become lost. At the foot of Ometepec, a mountain island of LakeNicaragua, lies an enormous monolith, or deified stone:surrounding this is an incredible amount of debris, madeup mostly of broken vessels of pottery, some in sucha state of preservation that the form may still be dis-tinguished. The island is an abrupt, volcanic moun-tain, jutting directly out of this inland sea about fifteenmiles distant easterly from Virgin Bay, this being the. No. 1. A Peruvian Water Vessel. nearest point on this coast. It seems probable that itscommanding position and appearance—its height beingabout two thousand feet—suggested to the natives itspropriety as a house for this deity, and that these brokenvessels and remnants of old pottery are the tributes ofdevout pilgrims to its shrine. The small value of mereconjecture confronts us severely when we try to go fur-ther than this. As regards origin, mode of production,or artizan, we are totally in the dark, and can only confineourselves to bare description. Most of the specimens now known are water-vesselsof small capacity, but curious and interesting design, simi-lar to the one in cut number one. Nearly all these smallpieces are copies of animate forms, birds, monkeys, and 16 IN TROD UCTION. fish being most frequent, and these are exhibited in atti-tudes grotesque, extraordinary, and repulsive. Some ofthe bird pieces are so for
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1872
