Mixteca-Puebla artist
Tripod Bowl, c. 1300–1500
ceramic
Bequest of Charles B. Cohn, 1984.13
5” x 8 ½” x 4”
Mixtec pottery was best known for elaborate polychrome painting with patterns that conveyed the piece’s particular use within ceremonial contexts. This bowl may have been designed to contain ritual offerings in the form of food and drink, possibly for a home altar given its smaller size. Later adaptations of the tripod bowl structure emphasized the form of the feet to model them after animal or human figures; the feet here could be simplified snake heads.