Handcrafted Ceramic Tripod Sculpture with Lizard Motif, "Ancestral Ceremonies"

Luis Alberto Gutiérrez pays tribute to his country's pre-Columbian heritage with this striking ceramic sculpture painted with a terracotta color created using pulverized stone. Long-tailed lizards appear to crawl up each of the handmade sculpture's three slender legs, while two rings of dots adorn the base of the vessel's long neck. The tripod's design is influenced by similar ceramic objects crafted by Costa Rica's indigenous peoples many centuries ago. "These are the vessels our ancestors used in funeral rituals, where they deposited the funeral remains together with other ceramic pieces and metals; these pieces carry with them a great deal of history and they comprise many years of antiquity," explains the artisan.