Santa Clara Pueblo Pressed Shoulder Jar [SOLD]

Some families pass artistic talent to their children who then pass it down to their children. This is truly apparent in the Tafoya family of Santa Clara Pueblo. Sara Fina Tafoya was a masterful potter as was her daughter Margaret Tafoya and some of her siblings. Margaret, in turn, passed on this artistic gene to nine children and numerous grandchildren.

Lu Ann Tafoya, a daughter of Margaret Tafoya, certainly inherited the talent to produce beautifully sculpted jars with outrageously burnished surfaces. She has made jars almost three feet tall, a feat not easily accomplished.

This red burnished jar displays impressed ovoid shapes around the rim, each one the same size and each one the same depth, something not easily accomplished.  The burnishing on the deep red slip is well above average.  The artist carved, in sgraffito style, a small bear paw near the base of the jar.

Condition:  original condition

Provenance:  from the Phillips estate of Colorado

 Recommended Reading: Pueblo Indian Pottery 750 Artist Biographies by Gregory Schaaf