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Lot 23A
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Narino & Colima Pottery Shell-Form Pendants - Ocarina
Narino & Colima Pottery Shell-Form Pendants - Ocarina
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Pre-Columbian, Colombia and West Mexico, Narino and Colima, ca. 100 BCE – 600 CE. A pair of ceramic pendants modeled in the rounded, spiraling form of a gastropod shell, each pierced with suspension holes at the ends of its canal for wear against the body. The larger is Colima blackware, its smoky gray surface burnished to a soft sheen, conceived purely as ornament. Its companion, a Narino bichrome, wears a crisp geometry of resist-painted triangles and parallel bands in iron-red over buff, with a stippled collar near the aperture. This second piece was fashioned as an ocarina, a small whistling flute, though its voice has since fallen silent. Together they speak to the shared Andean and West Mexican fascination with the marine shell, an emblem of water, fertility, and prestige carried far inland through trade and exchange. Size of larger (Colima blackware): 4.5" W x 1.9" H x 2.1" D (11.4 cm W x 4.8 cm H x 5.3 cm D).

The conch and marine gastropod held deep symbolic weight across the ancient Americas. As objects sourced from distant coasts, shells signaled access to long-distance exchange networks and conferred status; as vessels of sound, conch trumpets and shell-form whistles summoned the divine in ritual. The Narino peoples of the southern Colombian highlands and adjacent Ecuador are known for resist-decorated bichrome and polychrome wares bearing precise geometric registers, while the Colima of West Mexico produced lustrous burnished blackware and redware celebrated for its plastic, lifelike modeling. That two cultures separated by thousands of miles both rendered the same humble shell as a wearable charm underscores how widely this maritime emblem resonated.

Provenance: private Colorado, USA collection

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Item # 203302

  • Condition: Excellent. Narino no longer functions as an instrument. Both have light surface wear but are otherwise intact and excellent with good remaining detail. Wearable as pendants.

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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