Lot 63

Taino Carved Stone Zemi Head, Dominican Republic

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Lot 63
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Taino Carved Stone Zemi Head, Dominican Republic
Taino Carved Stone Zemi Head, Dominican Republic
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Taino Carved Stone Zemi Head, Dominican Republic

Estimate: $800 - $1,200

Starting Bid: $400

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT (In Progress)
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Pre-Columbian, Dominican Republic, Taino, ca. 1000–1500 CE. A compact stone effigy head carved by a Taino sculptor of the Greater Antilles, its weathered surface bearing the sediment-pocked patina of long burial. The form distills a human or anthropozoomorphic visage to its essentials: a domed cranium, deep-set ocular cavities, a broad projecting nose, and a parted mouth suggested between the heavy jaw and chin. Pitting and mineral accretion across the porous stone soften the original carving, lending the piece a quality at once geological and ancestral.

Such heads belong to the broad category of zemis, the spirit-vessels through which Taino caciques and behiques mediated with ancestors, natural forces, and tutelary deities. Whether mounted as the terminus of a staff, fixed to a larger composite figure, or set within the dim recesses of a ceremonial caney, a zemi served as a residence for numinous power, fed offerings of cohoba snuff, cassava, and song. The skull-like compression of features here may evoke the ancestral dead, the opiyelguobiran of nocturnal myth, or one of the countless personalized spirits each household kept close.

Carved before the Columbian encounter shattered Taino civilization across Hispaniola, the head survives as a quiet residue of a cosmology in which stone itself could think, remember, and intercede. Size: 2.9" W x 4.5" H x 2.6" D (7.4 cm W x 11.4 cm H x 6.6 cm D).

Provenance: ex-private collection, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, USA, collected from 2010 to 2015

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Item # 198513

  • Condition: Good. Weathering as shown with nicks, pitting, chips, and abrasions, all commensurate with age. Otherwise, nice presentation with liberal remaining detail. 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