Qero Cup

The original elite Inca owner of this kero cup employed the European tradition of figural representation to help legitimize his high rank in a visual language easily recognizable to the crown. The cup includes full-length depictions of soldiers or warriors, both Inca and facepainted Chuncho (an Amazonian group regarded by the Inca in the period as savage), in a battle scene from the past. An agricultural scene with oxen and oxen-drawn plows, both introduced by the Spanish, is included below. The decoration is carried out in the highly prized colonial lacquerwork technique of barniz de Pasto.