Historic Polychrome Zia Pueblo Olla with Floral Design [SOLD]

Around the 1880 to 1900 period, foliage appeared on Zia jars in a variety of styles—split leaves, flowers, berries and combinations of these. This jar features all of these items. The wide black leaves are split down their axis, the foliage is a stem with just straight-line leaves, and berries come in small black dots and larger orange dots.

A number of Zia jars with these design elements were collected by Stephenson in the late 1800s and by the American Museum of Natural History at the turn of the century.

The tilting domino-like elements at the shoulder of the jar are somewhat reminiscent of a design employed at Laguna Pueblo at this same time. Laguna, for the most part, treated the rectangles in solid black or split down the longitudinal line with a white line. Here, in this jar, three long parallel lines are crossed by three short parallel lines, resulting in a lighter treatment than had they been rendered in solid or split black. Acoma/Laguna influences on Zia designs were prevalent at this time, as noted by Dillingham in his study of SAR pottery.

This late 19^th century Zia jar is in remarkably good condition for its age. The vessel is strong and secure. The design has somewhat abraded from many decades of use and handling, but that only adds to the beauty of the piece.