Decorative gourd incised with animal motifs, Peru, 20th century

Decorative gourd incised with animal motifs, Peru, 20th century

Particular to the Ayacucho or Huancayo region, where gourd carving (known locally as mate burilado) is a tradition handed down from generation to generation. The object has a well-proportioned pear shape, about 10 cm high, and is decorated all over with densely composed animal motifs executed by incising and scratching, techniques that require great dexterity and experience.

The animal representations – tropical birds, rodents, lizards, cats and insects – are distributed in irregular, dynamic registers that follow the volume of the dried fruit organically. Some of these figures are integrated into narrative compositions typical of mate burilado work, in which daily life, local mythology and symbolic fauna are juxtaposed in a dense visual script.

The shell is treated to obtain a warm reddish-brown tone, and the incisions appear naturally oxidised over time, suggesting an authentic patina. In the absence of distinctive marks or a signature, a craft origin in the second half of the 20th century may be assumed, in a rural workshop in the mountainous area of the central Andes.