Chorrera Terracotta Sculpture of a Standing Woman

The Pre-Columbian cultures of Ecuador are among the oldest in South America and among the first to master the art of pottery. Although we know little about the peoples themselves or their traditions, historians have been able to piece together a picture of life in Ancient Ecuador thanks in part to the art and artifacts left behind. The culture of Valdivia created some of the oldest known works of art in the Americas. Situated along the coastal strip of Ecuador, the Valdivians established a thriving society that flourished for around two thousand years (from approximately 4000 to 1500 B.C.). Today they are famed for their small fertility figures, believed to be the earliest representational works of art in the Americas, first carved from stone, later formed from terracotta.

Hundreds of years later after the Valdivians disappear from the archaeological record appears another culture to which the name Chorrera has been attached (lasting from circa 1100-300 B.C.). Little is known about this culture; however, it is significant for its widespread geographical reach. As such, their artistic style greatly influenced those diverse cultures that began to emerge in the final centuries of the Chorrera period, a time historians have labeled the Period of Regional Development.

This female figure from the Chorrera period (Contemporary with the Chavin of Peru and the Tlatilco in Mexico) demonstrates the Ecuadorian craftsmen refined skill at manipulating the medium and his creative ability to express heightened power and spirituality. A standing female figure faces us with downcast coffee-bean eyes and an aquiline nose, her large, softly sculpted headdress echoing the rounded, sensuous shape of her body. Artistically incised and punctuated motifs on her body further enhance her inherent beauty, their patterns at once dynamic and restrained. The finely burnished brown finish with its soft, luminous sheen reflects the mystical light of the ages, allowing us to partake in the transcendent beauty of the ancient past.