Description:

Native American, North America, Southwestern United States, Colorado or New Mexico, Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi), Mesa Verde type, ca. 1050 to 1200 CE. A fine and rare example of a pottery slipper-form vessel that is hand-built via the traditional coil-and-scrape technique. The vessel deliberately resembles the form of a duck - of ovoid form with a round but stable base - with a pinched 'tail' behind a protruding pair of abstractly painted wings and a raised cylindrical neck sans head. Illustrated on the upper section are highly abstract geometric and linear motifs across its body and checkerboard pattern on back and chest. Size: 5.5" L x 4" W x 5" H (14 cm x 10.2 cm x 12.7 cm)

Pottery of this kind is some of the most important found in the ancient Southwest. The Chaco Project, the major excavations of Chaco Canyon (today a National Historical Park that is well worth a visit), recovered more of this pottery than any other style. Chaco was the center of the ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) culture, a vast city of monumental architecture, including massive stone Great Houses of multiple stories and kivas of all sizes. Roads from Chaco Canyon radiated to outlying settlements for hundreds of miles, and it seems to have been a religious, social, and trade hub for a vast region. Today many Native peoples in the Southwest connect their own histories to Chaco, seeing it as a stop along their sacred migrations.

Provenance: private Houston, Texas, USA collection; ex-private Houston, Texas, USA, collection, acquired before 2000

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#181467

  • Condition: Missing small hooked handle at rim, small chip to tail, pigment abraded as shown else in fine condition with most paint present.

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September 22, 2023 8:00 AM MDT
Louisville, CO, US

Artemis Fine Arts

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