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Lot 16A
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Pre-Columbian Pottery Female Figures - West Mexican Group of Four
Pre-Columbian Pottery Female Figures - West Mexican Group of Four
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Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Colima, Jalisco, Chupicuaro and Remojadas cultures, ca. 300 BCE – 300 CE. A quartet of hand-modeled terracotta women, each a distinct dialect of West Mexican clay-craft. The largest stands nude with arms folded across the chest, a turbaned coiffure framing wide ringed eyes, in the manner of Colima. Beside it, a Jalisco-style figure clasps hands to its breast, its bound or wrapped torso incised with crossing bands. A third spreads its arms outward in the frontal Chupicuaro idiom, hips swelling above tapered legs. The most petite, robed and seated, carries the soft modeling and red slip of Remojadas. Pigment survives in patches of ochre and warm earthen red. Such figures, recovered from shaft tombs and burial contexts, likely served as funerary companions, embodiments of fertility, ancestry, and the feminine principle that anchored West Mexican mortuary belief. Size of largest: 1.3" W x 3.3" H (3.3 cm W x 8.4 cm H).

The shaft-tomb cultures of Colima, Jalisco, and Nayarit produced some of ancient Mesoamerica's most vivid ceramic sculpture, deposited with the dead in deep subterranean chambers. Female figures dominate these assemblages, generally read as emblems of fertility and lineage continuity. Chupicuaro, centered in Guanajuato and among the earliest of these traditions, favored frontal, arms-out poses and bold geometric body painting. Remojadas, by contrast, belongs to the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, distinguished by its naturalistic modeling and the chapopote (asphalt) and red slip that often coat its surfaces, a reminder that this group gathers several regional schools under one West-and-Gulf Mexican umbrella.

Provenance: private Colorado, USA collection; Second Smallest + Tall Headed: ex-private Los Angeles, California, USA collection; ex-major gallery, Beverly Hills, California, USA, primarily acquired between 1985 and 2005

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Item # 202805

  • Condition: Good. Most petite is missing proper left arm and legs with chip to nose. Two have repairs to limbs and necks. Expected surface wear with nicks and abrasions. Good remaining detail.

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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
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$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