Sicán Gold Beaker with Warrior

Paul Cheesman, Florida

John C. Wise, New York, acquired from the above in October or November, 1960

Paul Tishman, acquired from the above prior to 1967

European Private Collection, from the above in January 30, 1980

Thence by descent

Denver, The Denver Art Museum, 1998 - 2017, (TL 18299)

In the ancient Andes, such gold drinking vessels were created for the ruling elite to be used in ceremonies and later included among their funerary goods. They would have probably contained chicha, the ritual liquid of fermented corn that was at the center of ceremonial libations.

The drinking cup, kero, has been hammered up from a single sheet of gold with a repousse depiction on each side with a ruler holding in each hand a ceremonial staff topped by paired profile anthropomorphic heads and a shield, coiffed with a tall plumed headdress and distinguished by large, comma-shaped eyes, characteristic of the central god, known as the Sican Deity, while vertical rows of stylized birds divide the cup’s pictorial surface, and another line of these birds embellishes the bottom register.

See Julie Jones, ed., The Art of Pre-Columbian Gold, New York, 1985, cat. no. 74, for the identical iconography in the Jan Mitchell Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc. no. 1991.419.63.