Native American, North America, West of Mississippi River (modern day Arkansas), Quapaw culture, ca. 1600 to 1800 CE. The Quapaw were Native Americans who lived in four villages along the Mississippi River in what is now Arkansas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The tribe was divided into two large moieties (divisions) - Earth and Sky - and twenty-one clans. Among the art forms they engaged in were lively ceramic forms, and teapot effigy pots like this vessel are some of their most impressive creations. These usually represent animals such as dogs, deer, otters, and frogs; however, this one departs from that tradition. Instead, its form is comprised of a slightly compressed, near spherical body with a petite olla emerging from the top, a small bulbous protrusion on the front that may have represented a face, and a long, raised conical spout at the opposite end of the piece. However, the striking polychrome decorative program is quite characteristic of Quapaw pottery. Here red, tan, and black curvilinear, coil-like motifs suggest snake-like forms. Size: 7.5" L x 10.5" W x 10.5" H (19 cm x 26.7 cm x 26.7 cm)

The Quapaw Mississippians created pottery of great durability and outstanding artistic merit which is especially impressive given that these ancient potters had no benefit of a potters wheel or modern kilns to produce their pottery. Archaeologists have suggested that women were the potters of this people.

A similar example resided at the Museum of Native American History in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Provenance: private Vaught collection, Atlanta, Georgia USA - this piece has been in his collection for 25 years and was acquired from the late Dan Sweat, a major collector of Native American art

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#123147

Signs of repair to exterior walls. Paint has been enhanced in spots. Expected surface wear with scuffs and pigment losses commensurate with age.