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Lot 122A
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Mississippian Blackware Vessels - Tripod Jar & Burnished Bowl
Mississippian Blackware Vessels - Tripod Jar & Burnished Bowl
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Pre-Columbian, United States, Mississippian culture, ca. 1000–1500 CE. A pair of earthenware vessels drawn from the Mississippian potter's repertoire, each fired to the smoky grey-black surface that distinguishes Southeastern wares. The smaller is a globular tripod jar with a constricted neck and short flaring rim, its rounded body lifted on three modest conical feet, the surface mottled where mineral encrustation has settled over a once-burnished skin. The larger is a deep hemispherical bowl with incurving walls and a simple rounded lip, its exterior streaked from hand-smoothing and burnishing, the interior darkened by use. Built by coiling and shell-tempered in the manner of the period, both forms served domestic ends, holding food, water, or stored grain in the riverine towns of the Mississippi and its tributaries. Their unembellished surfaces let body and proportion carry the aesthetic weight. Size of larger (bowl): 6.3" D x 3.3" H (16.0 cm D x 8.4 cm H).

The Mississippian tradition (roughly 800 to 1600 CE) flourished across the Southeast and mid-continent, centered on mound-building towns such as Cahokia, Moundville, and Etowah. Its potters pioneered shell tempering, crushed mussel shell mixed into the clay, which allowed thinner, stronger walls and more ambitious forms. Tripod supports and globular jars belong to a vessel vocabulary that paralleled, and may have echoed, Mesoamerican models reaching the Southeast through long-distance exchange networks. The dark, reduced-fired finish seen here results from smothering the firing to starve it of oxygen, a deliberate effect prized for its lustrous depth.

Provenance: private Colorado, USA Collection; ex-private Denver, Colorado, USA collection; ex-private Flushing, New York and Ridgeway, Colorado, USA collection

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Item # 203063

  • Condition: Good. Tripod has repair to small area of rim. Both have nicks, chips, and abrasions commensurate with age. Otherwise, bowl is intact and both present nicely with scattered earthen deposits.

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by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Artemis Fine Arts

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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