Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York
Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, November 5, 1980, lot 75, consigned by the estate of the above
Acquired by the present owner's family at the above auction

The Inca ceremonial and functional wood drinking vessels, known as queros, continued to be made in the 16th-17th century Colonial era in Peru. Made in pairs from wood originating from the tropical eastern slopes of the Andes, they are renown for the resinous inlaid polychrome designs derived from the plant Elaeagia pastoensis (Phipps, Hecht, and Martin, The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530-1830, New York, 2004, pp. 182-183).

This fierce feline head has a pronounced openwork mouth with narrowed eyes and small raised oval ears. The back of the neck is incised and painted with a frieze of seven Inca and Colonial clothed figures in a combat scene. A very similar feline head example is in the National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center, New York (inv. no. 16/6131); and see Kelemen, Medieval American Art, New York, 1943, Pl. 276e.