Lot 3

Michoacan Pottery Figure - Seated Dignitary in Headdress

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Lot 3
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Michoacan Pottery Figure - Seated Dignitary in Headdress
Michoacan Pottery Figure - Seated Dignitary in Headdress
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Michoacan Pottery Figure - Seated Dignitary in Headdress

Estimate: $600 - $900

Starting Bid: $300

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

Pre-Columbian, Mexico, Michoacan, ca. 100 BCE – 300 CE. A seated terracotta personage arrests attention through the intensity of its modeled face: wide almond eyes, a firm straight nose, and full lips set beneath a towering, hatched headdress that crowns the head like a fan. The figure sits with the proper right knee drawn up, that hand resting upon it while the opposite hand presses to the chest, a posture of quiet self-possession. Prominent circular earspools flank the face, and layered necklaces of beaded and tubular elements drape across the torso above a cinched belt. The reddish-brown clay retains earthen encrustation across its incised ornament. Such solid handmodeled figures, produced in west Mexican Michoacan, likely served votive or funerary purposes, accompanying the dead as attendants or as images of ancestors and persons of rank whose finery marked their standing. Size: 2.7" W x 4.8" H (6.9 cm W x 12.2 cm H).

West Mexican ceramic traditions, spanning the modern states of Michoacan, Jalisco, Nayarit, and Colima, remained largely outside the great highland horizons of Teotihuacan and were long overlooked by early scholarship. Their tomb figures, recovered from deep shaft-and-chamber burials, celebrate the human presence with a directness rare in Mesoamerican art: warriors, ballplayers, seated dignitaries, and richly adorned women. The elaborate headdress, earspools, and multiple necklaces on this figure signal elevated social rank, the visual grammar by which these communities distinguished persons of consequence.

Provenance: ex-David Zahler collection, acquired between 1975 to 2004

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Item # 203756

  • Condition: Some minor nicks and abrasions commensurate with age, but, otherwise, intact and excellent with impressive remaining detail and 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