Lot 303

Viceregal Peru Andean Lead-Glazed Earthenware Tinaja, ex-Holler & Saunders

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Lot 303
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Viceregal Peru Andean Lead-Glazed Earthenware Tinaja, ex-Holler & Saunders
Viceregal Peru Andean Lead-Glazed Earthenware Tinaja, ex-Holler & Saunders
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Viceregal Peru Andean Lead-Glazed Earthenware Tinaja, ex-Holler & Saunders

Estimate: $1,500 - $2,200

Starting Bid: $750

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
June 11, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

South America, Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish Colonial period., ca. 1700 - 1899 CE. A large lead-glazed earthenware tinaja of the Spanish Colonial Andean tradition, its globular body rising from a rounded base to a tall flaring neck, two small loop handles pressed at the shoulder like afterthoughts from a busy workshop, and a surface that tells the long story of its materials. The upper portion is dressed in white slip beneath a transparent lead glaze, the composition worked in cobalt blue; the lower body is left as bare terracotta, its warm iron-rich tone a frank acknowledgment that this was a vessel meant to work, not merely to be admired. At nearly fifty centimeters tall, it commanded a room. Size: 14.5" W x 19.7" H x 11.5" D (36.8 cm W x 50.0 cm H x 29.2 cm D); on custom stand: 20.7" H (52.6 cm H)

The decorative program belongs to the Hispano-Moresque grammar transplanted to the Andes by Iberian craftsmen and absorbed into colonial workshops over generations. Three registers divide the upper field. Along the neck, paired foliate and vegetal forms unfurl in mirrored symmetry, their curling tendrils organized into compartments of the kind found on Mudejar architectural ornament. Below, the principal figural band presents feline figures, likely lions, moving through a ground of scrolling foliage, each animal rendered in the schematic but animated manner inherited from the Islamic pictorial tradition, in which paired animals in profile had served as emblems of regal authority from Persia to Al-Andalus and thence into the Spanish colonial world. A lower register of stylized palmette arabesques anchors the composition before yielding entirely to the unglazed body below.

The materials confirm Andean production. X-ray fluorescence analysis of the body reveals a non-calcareous illitic-kaolinitic clay with iron content responsible for the characteristic terracotta tone, a profile consistent with the volcanic-derived clays of the Andean highlands and inconsistent with calcareous Iberian, Mexican, or North African earthenware traditions. The lead-arsenic glaze chemistry corroborates this: the arsenic present in the white glaze at 1.2 to 1.6 percent reflects the naturally arsenical lead ores of the Andean mining districts, a trace signature documented in colonial Peruvian and Upper Peruvian glaze production and distinct from the lead sources used in peninsular Spanish or Pueblan workshops. The elevated sulfur readings across glaze and body are consistent with post-depositional sulfate alteration, suggesting the vessel was recovered from a buried context.

The tinaja form itself, a large-scale storage jar of Iberian-Maghrebi lineage, was carried to the Americas by Spanish colonists and adapted by Andean potters who bent its Islamic-descended ornament to local materials and workshop habits. That an Andean craftsman at this date was still working within the Hispano-Moresque vocabulary of lions and palmettes, rather than the chinoiserie motifs that had come to dominate Pueblan production by the later colonial period, places this vessel among the more conservative strands of Andean colonial ceramic production, a workshop holding to an older Iberian grammar at some remove from the Manila galleon trade routes that reshaped Mexican taste. It is a piece that carries its lineage honestly, from the cobalt and the lion to the clay beneath.

Provenance: Ex-private collection of Samuel Saunders, Nogales, AZ, partner of Holler & Saunders, Ltd., founded in 1979 and widely regarded as one of the preeminent authorities in Spanish Colonial and Mexican folk art.

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Item # 201778

  • Condition: Professionally repaired with restoration and repainting over break lines. Some chipping and losses to rim and handles. Weathering and abrasions as shown. Nice preservation of glazed decoration and impressive remaining detail.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $749 $25
$750 $1,499 $50
$1,500 $2,999 $100
$3,000 $7,499 $250
$7,500 $14,999 $500
$15,000 + $1,000