Cochiti Pueblo Highly Decorated Serving Bowl [SOLD]

If you were ever invited to share a meal at a pueblo home, you would have seen vegetables or red or green chile stew served in a bowl like this.  Such bowls grace the table at all pueblo meals.  This historic bowl evidences wear on the interior that supports the statement that it was used as a serving bowl.

The bowl has a beautiful shape.  In curves inward from the base and then rolls outward at the rim.  Just this small change in convexity adds to the charm of the bowl.  The rim is painted black and exhibits a ceremonial line break.  There is another ceremonial line break that penetrates a framing line below the rim, down through the design panel, and then through a pair of framing lines near the bottom. Such an offset of a framing break away from the one at the rim is unusual.

The interior design of this Cochiti Pueblo Highly Decorated Serving Bowl is typically a rain cloud presentation seen on many Cochiti vessels.  Cochiti is one of the pueblos which has no restriction on using water symbols on secular pottery.  Their neighbor, Santo Domingo, strictly forbids use of such on its secular pottery.  The exterior design resembles an elongated infinity sign repeated several times around the bowl.  It is estimated that the bowl dates to the end of the historic period, circa 1940s.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: from a resident of Isleta Pueblo who received it from her parents

Recommended Reading: A River Apart: The Pottery of Cochiti & Santo Domingo Pueblos by Valerie Verzuh, et al.