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Lot 48
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Pre-Columbian Taino Carved Stone Frog Effigy Pipe
Pre-Columbian Taino Carved Stone Frog Effigy Pipe
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Pre-Columbian, Dominican Republic, Taino, ca. 1000–1500 CE. A compact greenstone pipe coaxed into the crouched silhouette of a frog, its rounded body hollowed at the dorsal center to receive the bowl. The amphibian rests in profile economy, head extended forward with a softly modeled muzzle, while concentric ringed eyes punched into the flank lend the creature its watchful stare. The stone retains a deep olive patina, burnished smooth across the back where centuries of handling and use have worked the surface to a quiet sheen. Beneath, the body is so heavily abraded that the folded legs which once articulated the underside have been worn away into anonymity, a testament to long ritual life or burial contact.

Among the Taino peoples of the Greater Antilles, the frog held cosmological weight as a creature of transformation and fertility, mediator between earth and water and an emissary of the rainy season that quickened the cassava fields. Effigy pipes such as this were employed in the inhalation of cohoba, a powerful hallucinogenic snuff prepared from the seeds of Anadenanthera peregrina and central to the visionary practices of the behique, or shaman. Drawn through the nostrils, cohoba opened channels to the cemi spirits, and zoomorphic instruments lent the rite the agency of the animal depicted, the frog in particular conducting the practitioner toward chthonic and aquatic realms. Carved from a dense igneous stone, the piece distills the Taino sculptural language at its most economical: form reduced, symbol amplified. Size: 2" W x 1.2" H x 2.7" D (5.1 cm W x 3.0 cm H x 6.9 cm D).

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

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Item # 198376

  • Condition: Fair. Chipping, abrasions, and losses to underside. Nice remaining detail with scattered encrustations.

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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
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