Lot 15

Pre-Columbian Chupicuaro Tripod Rattle Bowl with Resist Decoration

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Lot 15
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Pre-Columbian Chupicuaro Tripod Rattle Bowl with Resist Decoration
Pre-Columbian Chupicuaro Tripod Rattle Bowl with Resist Decoration
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Pre-Columbian Chupicuaro Tripod Rattle Bowl with Resist Decoration

Estimate: $400 - $600
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, Mexico, Chupicuaro, ca. 400–100 BCE. A warm terracotta bowl resting on three hollow, slit-vented legs, its burnished red-slipped body alive with cream negative-resist designs. Angular stepped frets march around the exterior, while the interior is filled with a dense lattice of parallel hatchings and chevrons, the kind of crisp geometry that defines the late Preclassic ceramic vocabulary of the Acambaro Valley. The Chupicuaro potters who shaped vessels of this type, working along the banks of the Lerma River in the highlands of Guanajuato before their lands were eventually submerged beneath a modern reservoir, favored exactly this palette of red, cream, and buff, and exactly this insistence on rhythm: pattern answering pattern across every visible surface.

Each leg is pierced with a long, narrow vent, the telltale opening of a rattle vessel. Small clay pellets were once sealed inside the hollow supports so that the bowl would chime softly when lifted or set down, perhaps marking the cadence of a meal, perhaps the steps of a funerary procession. The pellets in this example no longer sound, silenced by time or by the slow settling of fired clay, yet the engineering remains legible. Tripod bowls of this kind have been recovered in quantity from Chupicuaro shaft tombs, where they accompanied the dead alongside figurines and offerings of food, suggesting a role that hovered between the domestic and the ceremonial.

The negative-resist technique, achieved by painting designs in an organic medium that resisted a subsequent slip or smoke firing, gives the cream motifs their characteristic ghosted edges. It is a method that rewards close looking: the lines are not drawn so much as revealed, the pattern emerging from what the fire did not touch. Size: 8.5" D x 4.3" H (21.6 cm D x 10.9 cm H).

Provenance: private Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA collection; ex-private San Antonio, Texas, USA collection

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Item # 203136

  • Condition: Fair. Legs are missing clappers; no longer produce rattle. Professionally repaired with restoration and repainting over some break lines, while others remain visible. Light surface wear as shown with chipping and minor loss to end of legs. Otherwise, nice presentation with 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