Terracotta Vessel with Four Primates

The Chorus

Four figures crowd together on top of this vessel, one large figure at the centre and three smaller ones around it. All of them raise their hands to wide-open mouths. It is impossible to look at them without hearing noise.

The group is built with remarkable energy. Arms cross and overlap, knees press against knees, rings slide down every limb. The bodies seem to climb over one another, and the whole piece feels alive with movement.

One detail makes this work rare: the maker has tied real cords, of leather or plant fibre, around the ankles and ears of the figures. Fired clay and knotted string meet in the same piece, and the effect is both striking and intimate.

The vessel beneath is covered with hundreds of small studs, a surface as rough as bark. Together, figures and body form a single, crowded world, a family, a troupe, or a chorus caught at its loudest moment.

A large globular vessel covered with small applied studs, surmounted by a group of four primates seated close together. Each raises its hands to its open mouth; their heads are studded, their eyes set in broad, flattened rings.

Their limbs are hung with clay rings, and real leather or fibre cords are knotted around their ankles and ears, an unusual addition of a second material to the fired clay.