Acoma Pueblo Historic Polychrome Bowl

This historic Acoma Pueblo pottery bowl likely dates to the late 1800s or early 1900s. It is a rare bowl with an appealing design pattern and a well-crafted vessel form. Bowls of this size from Acoma and Laguna rarely appear on the market, and we are pleased to offer this unusual example.

Interestingly, the exterior designs could suggest an earlier date. Later examples often feature hatching and cross-hatching lines, connected symmetrical forms, volutes, and swirls. Here, we see a more elemental composition repeating six times around the exterior, mostly in black but with additional touches of orange. It is simple and strong, making use of bold color and rhythmic repetition rather than intricacy.

The interior exhibits inventive and beautiful design work. A dark orange slip covers the lower three quarters of the interior. A black framing line appears, separating the orange slip from the white band that circles the area below the rim. Within this band, two pairs of birds appear. One pair is black with orange spots, and the other orange with black spots. This unusual composition is one of the bowl's most appealing attributes.

A light wear pattern appears on the exterior and interior. It, too, is atypical, at least in comparison with wear patterns that appear on well-used dough and serving bowls. Dwight P. Lanmon and Francis H. Harlow's The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo offers an interesting suggestion: "The bowls rarely show a great amount of wear inside, suggesting they were not food bowls. Many of them—perhaps all—may have been used by medicine men." [205]

It is worth noting that the authors were not actually describing a piece like this one. They were describing a group of small bowls with interior decoration only, but their implication regarding the bowls' purposes may be a matter of interest. Having studied the wear patterns of many food bowls, we notice that this bowl varies significantly. Beyond that, we are unable to offer a suggestion as to this bowl's history, we can only commend its beauty and rarity.

Condition: Wear from handling, worn pigments in interior. Blacklight examination reveals a section of the rim that was broken out and put back in place without addition of plaster, as well as a small area of overpaint at the interior rim. Neither repair is visible to the naked eye.

Provenance: this Acoma Pueblo Historic Polychrome Bowl is from the collection of a client of the gallery.

Reference and Recommended Reading: The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo by Dwight P. Lanmon and Francis H. Harlow, 2013. Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe

TAGS: Southwest Indian Pottery, Acoma Pueblo, Historic Pottery