Lot 103

Mata Ortiz Seed Jar w/ Bird-Headed Fisherman by Letty Rodriguez M.

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Lot 103
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Mata Ortiz Seed Jar w/ Bird-Headed Fisherman by Letty Rodriguez M.
Mata Ortiz Seed Jar w/ Bird-Headed Fisherman by Letty Rodriguez M.
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Mata Ortiz Seed Jar w/ Bird-Headed Fisherman by Letty Rodriguez M.

Estimate: $400 - $600

Current Bid: $200

(1 Bid)
by Artemis Fine Arts
August 7, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Leticia (Letty) Rodrigez Mora (Mexican, active late XX-XXI century). Pottery seed jar with bird-headed fisherman, n.d. Signed "Letty Rodriguez M." just below shoulder. A low, disc-shaped seed jar whose broad shoulder tapers to a small circular mouth, its surface commanding attention through disciplined geometry. Hand-coiled earthenware carries a fine-line palette of terracotta red and near-black, laid down freehand in mineral slips. Concentric bands radiate outward: a central pinwheel of interlocking hooked motifs whorls around the aperture, encircled by a dense field of stepped triangles that ripples toward the rim like a woven textile translated into clay. On the underside of the base, a lively narrative vignette appears, a bird-headed man in a crouched stance, legs bent, grasping a large fish in one hand and, in the other, a spear strung with six impaled fish. Signed "Letty Rodriguez M." below the shoulder, the piece exemplifies the burnished precision of the Mata Ortiz revival. Size: 4.8" D x 1.3" H (12.2 cm D x 3.3 cm H).

The Mata Ortiz tradition emerged in the 1970s from the village of Juan Mata Ortiz in Chihuahua, Mexico, where Juan Quezada Celado independently reconstructed the pottery techniques of the ancient Casas Grandes (Paquime) culture, whose polychrome wares flourished nearby centuries earlier. What began as one man's experiment blossomed into a village-wide movement, with hundreds of potters producing hand-coiled, hand-burnished, mineral-painted vessels fired without wheels or kilns in the old manner. Letty Rodriguez Mora belongs to this living lineage of named artist-potters, and her work is prized for the exacting control of the fine-line brush, drawn from a single strand of human hair or yucca fiber, that gives the whorl and stepped-triangle fields their hypnotic regularity. The narrative fisherman on the base nods to the figural iconography of Casas Grandes antecedents while remaining a personal, signed authorial flourish.

Provenance: private Denver, Colorado, USA collection; ex-Trautenberg Estate

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Item # 204031

  • Condition: Some chipping to underside of base with a few nicks in areas. Otherwise, intact and very nice with good detail and imagery.

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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