An Acoma polychrome storage jar
4008
An Acoma polychrome storage jar
A four-color example, with wide expansive sides, sharp shoulder and raised tapering neck, painted with a trio of double rainbow bands over a large parrot figure, alternating with smaller birds amidst foliage below the rim, decorated throughout with a wide variety of blossoming plants and floral devices, extremely minor restoration.
height 16 3/4in, diameter 18 3/8in
Sold for US$ 337,250 inc. premium

Footnotes

  • Ex-Henry G. Peabody Collection, Seattle, Washington. Henry Peabody was a pioneer photographer who visited Acoma Pueblo in 1898 and again in 1902. Mr. Peabody acquired the olla at Acoma Pueblo during one of his two visits. See pages 14 and 133 of Pueblo Treasures for a photograph of the olla taken by Henry Peabody at Acoma Pueblo probably in 1901 or 1902.

    Ex-Richard Howard Collection, Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1976, Mr. Howard wrote an article about this olla entitled "A Magnificent Acoma Pot", which was published in American Indian Art Magazine. Mr. Howard’s article included an illustration of the photograph by Henry Peabody. This olla is illustrated as Fig. 24 in Harlow and Silverman. The olla is also illustrated on page 83 in Sullivan, McCoy, and Youngblood. The olla was exhibited as part of "With Beauty All Around Us", an exhibition at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1998.

    "Along with the Acoma polychrome olla illustrated here as Fig. 2 (Pueblo Treasures), this olla qualifies as a candidate for the finest example of polychrome pottery produced at Acoma Pueblo during the late nineteenth-century. It is beyond question that this olla was painted by the same artist who produced the Acoma polychrome olla here in Fig. 2. See Fig. 25 for an illustration, which includes both ollas." -J.S.

    "The illustration on page 133 is a photograph taken by Henry Peabody at Acoma Pueblo, probably in 1901 or 1902. In the photograph, an Acoma woman is shown standing on the valley floor at the foot of Acoma Mesa. The polychrome olla balanced on her head is the same olla collected by Henry Peabody and illustrated here as Fig. 24.

    There is no documentary evidence to suggest that the woman in the photograph is the woman who made and painted the olla. However, between 1880 and 1920, Anglo-American photographers visiting the western Pueblos were in the habit of taking photographs of women at those Pueblos wearing pots they had made on their heads." -F.H.H.

Category: Ethnographic Art / Native American

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