Polychrome Historic Tesuque Pueblo Jar with Native Repair [SOLD]

This round globular jar is an exemplary expression of Tesuque Polychrome at its best. It is the standard water jar size and features the globular shape suggesting an 1880 date. Clay, temper, slip and technique give this vessel those characteristic values which say it could not have been made anywhere but at Tesuque. The paste is tan in color and fibrous in texture with crystalline sand grains.

Simplicity, balance, rhythm, abstraction, an unequalled range of design elements, and virility characterize the work combined in this vessel. The designs around the mid-body float on a background of cream slip and represent floral elements and perhaps insect creatures.

In this jar we see an object combined with the artist’s subjective response to it—a union of material and technique both symbolic and intelligible. This potter has applied to the painting of the pottery the discipline of line and technique developed through many centuries of decorating every imaginable object of daily or sacred use with designs innately suited to the objects decorated and charged with traditional cultural concepts.

A red rim and red band below the decoration are traditional to Tesuque. The bottom is concave and the tan, unslipped clay is stone polished in traditional fashion.

What is truly fascinating is the home repair undertaken at the rim to replace the chip that had separated from the vessel. Native repairs such as this one, where the piece is put back into place and secured with piñon pitch are highly desirable in old vessels. It is fortunate that someone has not removed the piñon pitch and replaced it with glue and over-paint.

This jar is an excellent example of pre-1900 Tesuque ceramics decorated with precision and sporting Native repairs. It could hardly get better than this.

Publication Available: A limited quantity of the Adobe Gallery exhibit catalog from the August 2002 exhibit of Tesuque pottery is available at no charge upon request.