Lot 127A

Mississippian Pottery Effigy Group - Fish, Turtle, Hexagonal Bowl

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Lot 127
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Mississippian Pottery Effigy Group - Fish, Turtle, Hexagonal Bowl
Mississippian Pottery Effigy Group - Fish, Turtle, Hexagonal Bowl
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Mississippian Pottery Effigy Group - Fish, Turtle, Hexagonal Bowl

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, United States, Mississippian culture, ca. 1000–1500 CE. A trio of hand-built earthenware vessels animated by the creatures of river and marsh. The smallest is a globular jar rendered as a fish seen in profile, its head modeled at one shoulder and tail tapering at the other. Beside it sits a turtle effigy bowl, the reptile's carapace hollowed into the basin while modeled limbs and a blunt head emerge from the body. The largest is an open bowl with a softly hexagonal, undulating rim that lifts and dips like the surface of moving water. Coil-built from shell-tempered clay and burnished to an earthen gray patina, these are utilitarian and votive forms at once, the zoomorphic conceits typical of Mississippian potters who dwelt the depicted fauna with everyday vessels of food and offering. Size of largest (bowl): 6.8" W x 2.2" H x 6.3" D (17.3 cm W x 5.6 cm H x 16.0 cm D).

The Mississippian tradition flourished across the river valleys of the American Southeast and Midwest, its great earthwork centers such as Cahokia and Moundville anchoring a world of maize agriculture, chiefly authority, and a sophisticated ceramic art. Shell tempering, the diagnostic technical signature of the period, lent the clay strength and allowed the thin walls and ambitious modeled forms seen here. Animal effigy vessels, fish, frogs, turtles, owls, and human heads, recur throughout Mississippian pottery, blurring the line between functional ware and the symbolic vocabulary of a people deeply attuned to the waterways that sustained them.

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 # 203164

  • Condition: Very Good. Fish jar has been repaired with restoration over break lines and chipping in areas. Some stable hairline surface fissures to turtle. All have expected nicks, pitting, and abrasions commensurate with age. Otherwise, bowl and turtle are intact and all are very nice with scattered earthen deposits.

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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