Lot 66

Taino Pottery Vessels, Pair of Miniatures

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Lot 66
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Taino Pottery Vessels, Pair of Miniatures
Taino Pottery Vessels, Pair of Miniatures
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Taino Pottery Vessels, Pair of Miniatures

Estimate: $600 - $900

Starting Bid: $300

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

Pre-Columbian, Dominican Republic, Taino, ca. 1000–1500 CE. A pair of small earthenware vessels hand-formed by Taino potters of the Greater Antilles, each modest in scale yet expressive in modeling. The larger of the two assumes a boat-like silhouette, its rim sweeping upward at either end into a pair of opposing zoomorphic lugs, each pierced through the eye to suggest a stylized creature, perhaps a bat or owl peering across the basin. Its surface is buff-gray, lightly burnished, with the soft warmth of low-fired clay still apparent in the body. The companion vessel is a squat, round-shouldered olla with a flaring collar, its walls articulated by horizontal ridges and flanked by small applied adornos that read as schematic animal heads. Traces of reddish slip linger across the body, weathered to a rust patina by centuries in tropical soil.

Such miniature wares were produced throughout the Chican Ostionoid tradition, the ceramic complex associated with the late prehispanic Taino who occupied Hispaniola and the surrounding islands at the moment of European contact. Vessels of this scale likely served domestic or ritual purposes, perhaps holding pigments, offerings, or small portions of food and drink. The zoomorphic adornos, a signature of Taino ceramic invention, embed the household object within a cosmology populated by ancestral spirits and animal intermediaries, the cemis whose presence permeated daily life. Size of larger: 4.6" W x 3.2" H x 3.4" D (11.7 cm W x 8.1 cm H x 8.6 cm D).

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

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Item # 198737

  • Condition: Good. More petite bowl has had repair to rim with break lines visible and stable hairline fissure extending to base. Both have weathering to surfaces with nicks and abrasions. Otherwise, larger is intact and both present nicely with scattered earthen deposits and good remains of decoration.

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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