Whistling bottle in the shape of an owl

This highly polished whistling bottle is made of an orange-buff clay with dark areas indicating imperfect control over firing. The upper part of the bottle has a red slip, and the face of the owl is covered with a crusty white pigment. The lower part of the vessel is decorated all over with reserved circles produced by a ‘negative’ or ‘resist’ technique. Initially this area of the pot was covered with an orange-slip, and the bottle was fired. Afterwards, a resist substance (possibly wax) was painted onto the circular zones, and the vessel then exposed to a small, sooty fire. Carbon was absorbed into the zones unprotected by the wax coating, but this smudging process did not affect the resist-protected circles, which retain their original orange-colour. With time the fugitive black material tends to disappear and the design becomes almost invisible. This same combination of red slip and black resist painting occurs on a Chorrera bird-shaped bottle illustrated by Lathrap et al.(1975: no. 371).

Warwick Bray in Steven Hooper (ed.). 1997. Catalogue to the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection. University of East Anglia.