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All auctions / Asian Art / Teotihuacan Blackware Tripod Vessel - Incised Cylindrical Cup
Pre-Columbian, Mexico, Teotihuacan. A cylindrical tripod vessel of burnished grayware, its straight walls rising to a gently everted rim from three slab-cut supports. Around the body runs an incised register of angular and interlocking motifs, sharp diagonals crossed by hatched panels and a scrolling arc, cut into the leather-hard clay before firing and now softened by mineral encrustation. The rectangular feet carry stepped and clawed detailing, echoing the geometric vocabulary above. This form, the cylindrical tripod, is the signature drinking and serving vessel of Teotihuacan, the great highland metropolis of central Mexico. Such cups likely held cacao or other prestige beverages consumed at feasts and ceremonies, their incised surfaces converting the profane act of drinking into a display of the city's austere, ordered aesthetic. The subdued surface would once have gleamed under careful burnishing. The cylindrical tripod is the defining ceramic form of Teotihuacan, produced in enormous quantities during the city's apogee (roughly 200 to 650 CE) and exported or imitated across Mesoamerica, from the Maya lowlands to Oaxaca. Its standardized proportions reflect the workshop production of an urban society that at its height housed well over one hundred thousand people. Decoration was achieved by several techniques: direct incision as seen here, plano-relief carving, and the celebrated stucco-and-fresco painting applied after firing. The rigid geometry and preference for repeated, interlocking motifs distinguish Teotihuacan design from the more naturalistic traditions of contemporary neighbors, expressing a civic ideal of order that pervaded the city's architecture, mural art, and ritual life. Item # 203793
Estimate:$450
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorAsian Art
Estimate:
$450
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