SPECIAL OFFER: Four-color Polychrome Laguna Jar [SOLD]

Special Offer: The consignor has requested that we post a price reduction on this jar from the original price of $6,950 to a new price of $5,560, reflecting a 20% reduction

This superlative Laguna Pueblo Polychrome olla dates to circa 1900-1920, and makes a fantastic visual statement in a four-color palette: red, white, black, and buff-orange. The underbody is slipped in buff-orange, as is the neck interior down to the upper interior shoulder. The rim top is black and the design field has been divided into two sections, from underbody to shoulder, and shoulder to rim.

The overall image presented is actually quite suggestive of Zia, with the dark red and particularly the diagonal elements. The potters of Laguna were quite experimental, and had no qualms with appropriating design elements from various pueblos such as Zia and particularly Zuni.

The upper shoulder to the neck is defined by a series of graceful curving black split feather elements tipped with dark red ends, the pairs separated by parallel lines with small black dots affixed to the outer lines. The shoulder is defined with a black and white checkerboard band. The mid-body is defined by a series of wide orange bands, alternating between vertical orientation and diagonal orientation. Interspersed within enclosures defined by these orange bands are more split-feather cloud-like elements worked in black.

Long-time Laguna potter Evelyn Cheromiah once identified for me several design elements that she associated with early Laguna potters. The checkerboard design around the neck and the wide orange bands of this jar are two of the elements she associated as the work typical of Laguna potters.

This jar is structurally in very good condition. There are no chips, cracks, etc. associated with it. There is an irregularity to the rim in that the jar is about 1-inch shorter on one side than the opposite. There is some abrasion to the painted surface but nothing that is significant enough to mar the beauty of this magnificent work of art.

Provenance: From a New York collector