Tesuque Pueblo Rain God Figurine with Painted Face [SOLD]

C3534B-rain-god.jpg

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Potter Once Known

“Scholars have advanced several explanations to account for the origin of these figures (rain gods).  In 1955 Fay-Cooper Cole said that he did not know if ‘the idea of the figures originated with (Jake) Gold (Santa Fe merchant) or whether the Indians revived an older pattern’ but that ‘most, if not all, of the ‘rain gods’ in American collections were made after 1898.’  Kathleen Gratz argues that the idols were an indigenous development out of an older, more generalized Tewa tradition.  She believes that the horns, ears, and exaggerated sexual characteristics of the early idols are evidence that they are related to Kokopelli, the humpbacked flute player found on rock art throughout the Southwest and dating to pre contact times.  Barbara A. Babcock sees the idols as part of a long-standing figurative tradition that experienced a rebirth at the pueblos of Cochiti and Tesuque around the time of the arrival of the railroad.  Patricia Fogelman Lange notes that unpainted micaceous seated figures with exposed genitals and horns are ‘not unlike pre-Columbian funerary figures,’ but she believes that ‘early Tesuque figures were influenced by Mexican wares but reinterpreted from a unique Pueblo perspective as traders influenced form and surface design.”  Anderson 2002

 

Regardless of their beginning and whether they are based on true Pueblo tradition, the rain gods have had a 125-year existence and interest in them is still strong.  This rain god has an unusual face and upper body decorationone side painted red and the other blue. 

 

This Tesuque Pueblo rain god figurine is slipped in cream-colored clay, an indication that it dates to the early 1900s.  It is believed that this slip made its appearance in 1903.  A figurine collected prior to 1910 is decorated with red and blue ink.  The earliest forms of rain gods decorated with ink would be red on cream, then red and blue on cream.  Using ink as a paint came to a halt in the mid-1920s when poster paints made an appearance.  The paint on this figurine appears to be poster paint and the date would be circa 1920s.

 

Condition: Very good condition

Provenance: from the collection of a gentleman from California who purchased it in the Adobe Gallery 2005 exhibit of 105 rain gods from the collection of Dana Lipsig.

Recommended Reading: When Rain Gods Reigned by Duane Anderson

 

Potter Once Known
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