106 



A STUDY OF CHIRIQUIAN ANTIQUITIES. 



it removed on being heated, leaving the desired pattern in the ground color and 

 the interstices in black : the latter is therefore not a true delineating color. The 

 name lost color, however, is still as appropriate as it was when first given to the 

 group more than twenty years ago. Hartman and others call it " negative paint- 

 ing." The same process was known to the ancient inhabitants of Ecuador, Pro- 

 fessor M. H. Saville having found some fine examples of it around Rio Bamba. 

 It also occurs in northern Ecuador and southern Colombia. I have just discovered 

 in the Keith Collection of ancient pottery from Mercedes, Costa Rica, a vase 

 painted in this manner. Hartman cites recent examples from Guatemala, and it 

 is also met with in the native art of Java and Hawaii. 



Much of the richness in contrast between the black interspaces and the patterns 

 in the original ground colors is lost, owing to the ease with which the black rubs 

 off. When new, the ware must have been highly effective. So much of the black 

 pigment has disappeared through usage before burial, and especially from long 

 contact with the earth in a region of relatively great rainfall, that the original 

 ground colors show everywhere through the black, and in many places the pattern 

 is completely lost because of the absence of the black. 



Beginning with examples in 

 which the entire original ground 

 is red, a vase from Divala with 

 linear decorations is reproduced 

 in Plate XXVII (fig. a). It took 

 a high degree of skill to arrive 

 at such perfect proportions as 

 are here exhibited. The pattern 

 was first laid down in wax over 

 the red, the entire outer surface 

 then being coated with black. 

 After the vessel was passed 

 through the hot-water bath, the 

 pattern appeared in the red of 

 the original ground ; what is 

 left of the black on the inter- 

 spaces becomes what might be 

 called the final ground, and what 

 was originally the ground takes 

 the place of the delineating color. 

 The framework of the pattern 

 consists of two horizontal bands, 

 one broad and one narrow, just below the greatest circumference of the body, 

 together with two sets of similar bands tangent to the neck on either side and 

 in nearly vertical planes. These divide the upper zone into two arched panels 

 and two alternating upright panels. Two bands in a vertical plane mark each 

 upright panel. The outer surface of the neck is marked by bands in a similar 

 sense, while the lip and inner surface of the orifice are left in the original ground 

 tint. The arched panels are filled in with groups of parallel bands that form a 



Fig. 180. Vase in red and black with large aperture, and two 

 arched panels on shoulder. Lost color ware. '/ 



