Decorated Pottery Piggy Banks

Ceramics of Quinua Quinua is a small artisan community in the province of Huamanga, in Peru's central highland department of Ayacucho. It has long been noted for its tradition of simple ceramics depicting churches, houses, animals, and religious folkart - a blend of the colonial and indigenous that's characteristic of life in the Andes.

Quinua is famous for its clay with red and cream tones which is used to produce these ceramic pieces. Artisans working from small home-based workshops begin by mixing the clay with water and then pressing it into molds. The pieces are baked in wood or gas-fired ovens to cure, and then painted by hand.

Traditionally, pottery from Ayacucho has been known for its earth-tone colors, but today artisans are beginning to paint with more pastel and bright colors.