Bonhams 1793 : A remarkable Apache olla

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6 Dec 2010 12:00 PST San Francisco
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Back to auction 18407

A remarkable Apache olla

The enormous basket designed in a series of four-petal outlined rosettes rising from the dark base to the rim, depicting a myriad of human and animal images, including elephants with riders and without, Christ on the cross, eagles, bucks and does, lizards, standing men and women, alone and in pairs, accented by crosses, diamonds and other geometric motifs.
height 28in, diameter 26 1/2in

Sold for US$ 67,100 inc. premium

Footnotes

Provenance:
Mr. and Mrs. Mike Kirk, owners of a trading post at Manuelito, New Mexico; possibly to another unidentified owner and/or then to Elaine Horwitch who kept it in her personal collection. In a verbal communication from Tommy Kirk, Mike's son, it was reported that his step-mother first purchased the basket from an Apache woman in the Gallup area sometime around the 1930's. Regarding the very unusual images of elephants, conjecture was that a circus had visited Gallup in the first decade of the 20th century and had inspired the weaver to reproduce that startling image. Research has not given proof to that notion but it seems likely that such an event would have been the catalyst for inclusion of this most non-Southwestern of animals amongst the usual menagerie of deer, horses, eagles and lizards.

Exhibited:
Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, as part of Apache!, an exhibition lasting almost a year from late summer, 1994 into 1995.