Lot 26

Pre-Columbian Pottery Group of 4 - Tlatilco, Zapotec, Nayarit & Teotihuacan

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Lot 26
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Pre-Columbian Pottery Group of 4 - Tlatilco, Zapotec, Nayarit & Teotihuacan
Pre-Columbian Pottery Group of 4 - Tlatilco, Zapotec, Nayarit & Teotihuacan
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Pre-Columbian Pottery Group of 4 - Tlatilco, Zapotec, Nayarit & Teotihuacan

Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500

Starting Bid: $500

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
August 6, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Pre-Columbian, Mexico, Tlatilco, Zapotec, Nayarit, and Teotihuacan cultures, ca. 1200 BCE – 650 CE. A quartet of ancient Mexican earthenware pieces spanning nearly two millennia of Mesoamerican craft. A standing Tlatilco fertility figurine, modeled in the round with full hips and an elaborate coiffure, embodies the Preclassic Valley of Mexico's preoccupation with the female form. Beside it, a small Teotihuacan head bears the broad, stylized features and applique cap of the great highland metropolis. A larger Zapotec head from Oaxaca, its serene visage framed by an ornamented headdress, hints at the modeled urn traditions of Monte Alban. Completing the group, a hand-built Nayarit jar from West Mexico swells with the rounded, utilitarian grace of shaft-tomb ceramics. Together they trace a cross-section of Mexico's ancient ceramic vocabulary, from votive figurine to funerary vessel. Size of largest (Zapotec head): 2.3" W x 3.8" H (5.8 cm W x 9.7 cm H).

The four cultures represented span radically different times and regions of ancient Mexico. Tlatilco, flourishing in the Valley of Mexico during the Early to Middle Preclassic (ca. 1200-800 BCE), is renowned for its solid handmodeled figurines emphasizing fecundity. The Zapotec, centered at Monte Alban in Oaxaca, produced their most celebrated ceramic sculpture between roughly 300 BCE and 700 CE. Teotihuacan, the vast Classic-period city northeast of modern Mexico City, reached its apogee ca. 150-650 CE, mass-producing moldmade heads and figurines. Nayarit, part of the West Mexican shaft-tomb tradition, is best known for ceramics interred with the dead between about 200 BCE and 500 CE. Grouped together, the pieces offer a compact teaching survey of Mesoamerican regional style.

Provenance: private Lumberton, Texas, USA collection, acquired before 2010

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Item # 203382

  • Condition: Both heads are fragments from larger pieces. Tlatilco figure is missing proper left foot. Chipping to rim of jar. All have expected weathering to surface. Liberal remaining detail and scattered earthen deposits throughout.

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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