Lot 311
Published San Francisco Redware Ithyphallic Male w/ Turquoise Earrings, TL'd
Published San Francisco Redware Ithyphallic Male w/ Turquoise Earrings, TL'd
Starting Bid: $8,500
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Native American, American Southwest, Mogollon culture, San Francisco phase., ca. 900 - 1100 CE. A vessel of exceptional rarity, modeled as an ithyphallic seated male figure adorned with paired shell and turquoise earrings, whose broad, globular body merges the functional form of a ceramic container with the full vocabulary of Mogollon figural sculpture. The body is hand-built and burnished to a deep, even terracotta red characteristic of San Francisco phase redware, a slip-and-polish tradition that distinguishes Mogollon ceramic production from the painted wares of neighboring Ancestral Puebloan and Hohokam traditions. The figure sits in a posture of weighted stillness, arms rendered in low relief and folded across the abdomen with hands meeting at the center, a gesture that reads simultaneously as repose and ritual containment. The legs are abbreviated, feet barely emergent from the vessel's base, as though the body itself is the vessel and the vessel is the body, a conflation the Mogollon potter pursued deliberately and with considerable skill. Size: 6.5" W x 10.1" H x 6.9" D (16.5 cm W x 25.7 cm H x 17.5 cm D)
The face commands attention. Broad and squared at the crown, it is modeled with a directness that stops well short of portraiture but carries unmistakable individual presence: deep-set eyes beneath a low brow, a full nose, and slightly parted lips that give the figure an air of arrested speech, as though caught mid-utterance in some ceremonial address. The head is tilted fractionally upward, a subtle but telling orientation that many scholars associate with trance states or communication with supernal forces.
The ithyphallic modeling is explicit and deliberate, a recurring feature in Mogollon figural ceramics that scholars interpret as an assertion of generative power, fertility, and perhaps the authority of a ritual specialist or deified ancestor. Such vessels were not domestic objects. Their presence in the archaeological record is overwhelmingly funerary and ceremonial, placed with the dead or employed in rites where the boundary between the living and the ancestral was ritually thinned.
Turquoise carried enormous cosmological weight throughout the prehistoric Southwest, associated with water, sky, and the life-sustaining forces that Mogollon communities, living in the agriculturally precarious highlands of present-day New Mexico and Arizona, sought constantly to propitiate. The hoop earrings, suspended from the figure's pierced ears and strung with shell and turquoise cabochons, have been restrung in modern times using what are likely original or period-consistent materials, preserving the adornment's essential character. Their presence on the figure underscores his elevated status, whether as a living dignitary, a shamanic practitioner, or the ceramic embodiment of an ancestor worthy of jeweled commemoration.
Figural effigy vessels of this quality, completeness, and iconographic specificity are among the most sought-after objects in the canon of American Southwest prehistoric art, and examples combining ithyphallic display with intact adornment are exceptionally scarce in the private market.
Publication: Published in "Ancient Origins" by R. Drapkin (2002) and Klyosov, Anatole A. and Elena A. Mironova. “A DNA Genealogy Solution to the Puzzle of Ancient Look-Alike Ceramics across the World.” Advances in Anthropology 03 (2013): 164-172. Figure 5(b).
This piece has been tested using thermoluminescence (TL) analysis by CIRAM and has been found to be ancient and of the period stated. A full report will accompany the item upon purchase.
Provenance: private Colorado, USA collection, acquired in July 2025 via Arte Primitivo, New York, New York, USA, Auction 120, lot 328; ex-private Florida, USA collection
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Item #
202461
- Condition: Earrings have been restrung in modern times. A very minor thin knife blade type slit in the lower rear right side. Some pitting and abrasions, commensurate with age. Otherwise, intact and excellent with impressive remaining pigments and detail.
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| From: | To: | Increments: |
|---|---|---|
| $0 | $749 | $25 |
| $750 | $1,499 | $50 |
| $1,500 | $2,999 | $100 |
| $3,000 | $7,499 | $250 |
| $7,500 | $14,999 | $500 |
| $15,000 + | $1,000 |