Lot 63

Caddo Mississippian Pottery Bowls - Engraved, Group of Three

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Lot 63
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Caddo Mississippian Pottery Bowls - Engraved, Group of Three
Caddo Mississippian Pottery Bowls - Engraved, Group of Three
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Caddo Mississippian Pottery Bowls - Engraved, Group of Three

Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500

Starting Bid: $500

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
August 6, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Native American, Caddo, ca. 1200–1500 CE. A trio of hand-built earthenware bowls carrying the fine-line engraving that distinguishes Caddo ceramic art. Each vessel rises from a rounded base to a slightly incurving rim, the burnished brown and buff surfaces darkened by fire clouds. The largest bears a band of scrolling arcs and hatched crosshatched fields, meanders and nested curves that flow around the shoulder in the rhythmic style of the Caddo potters of the Mississippian world. The two smaller bowls repeat the language of engraved lines, wavy horizontals, punctate dots, and encircled elements, cut into the leather-hard clay before firing. Made without the wheel and coil-raised by hand, these were domestic and mortuary vessels alike, the labor of a settled agricultural people whose villages spread across the Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma borderlands. Size of largest: 7.9" D x 3.5" H (20.1 cm D x 8.9 cm H).

The Caddo peoples flourished across the Trans-Mississippi South from roughly 900 CE onward, building mound centers and sustaining a farming economy of maize, beans, and squash. Their potters are among the most accomplished in North America, celebrated for thin-walled, highly burnished wares carved with engraved scrolls, meanders, and negative-space motifs. Such engraving was executed after the vessel had dried to a leather-hard state and often before firing, sometimes highlighted afterward with a red or white pigment rubbed into the incised lines. The smallest of the group is recorded as found in Little River County, in the far southwestern corner of Arkansas, a heartland of Caddo settlement along the Red and Little River drainages.

Provenance: private Colorado, USA Collection; ex-private Denver, Colorado, USA collection; ex-private Flushing, New York and Ridgeway, Colorado, USA collection; most petite was found in Little River County, Arkansas, USA

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Item # 203165

  • Condition: Most petite has been repaired with restoration over breaklines. Other two are intact with stable hairline fissures. All have expected age wear but otherwise present very nicely with impressive remains of incised decoration. Scattered earthen deposits throughout.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $299 $25
$300 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 + $20,000