Harviana Pino Toribio Zia Pueblo Double Rainbow Jar, c.1935

To make an attribution to a specific potter and, in some instances, a specific time frame, it is now easier to do because of the Harlow and Lanmon detailed books on some of the potters and their pueblos. This jar is easily identifiable as the work of Harviana Pino Torivbo of Zia Pueblo based on jars with identical or very similar black birds. It is not often that a potter would confiscate another one's designs, so it can be assumed that if a documented vessel has birds of the same style and, in this instance, the same style double rainbow, one can say this is another creation of the outstanding potter Harviana Pino Toribio.

This olla, or water jar, includes two flying black birds, each flying with determination above the double rainbow, and a pair of red birds standing under the double rainbow. The red birds are very similar to those on jars illustrated in the book, and the black birds with fan-like tails are almost identical to those published. The red birds have small heads with oval pointed ears and two-part tail feathers with rounded black caps at their ends as similar ones illustrated by Harlow and Lanmon.

Toribio, born in 1904, was the daughter of famous potter Martina Galvan Pino. She probably started making pottery at the young age of 15 or 16 and continued until she passed away at the age of 45-a short career.

Thanks to Harlow and Lanmon, Zia pottery of the late 1800s and early 1900s is well documented, with numerous photographs of some of the potters and their pottery. Among the well documented potters is Harviana Toribio. The determination that Toribio was the potter of this jar is based on photographed jars made by her in the 1930s and 1940s that appear in Harlow and Lanmon.

Harviana Pino Toribio (1904-1949) Sr'audyuwi' was a Zia Pueblo potter who was active from ca. 1915 to 1948. Toribio made polychrome ollas, jars, bowls, tiles, miniature adobe houses, and other forms. Harviana (also spelled Sarviana or Faviana) Pino Toribio was the daughter of Tomas Pino and Martina Galvan Pino. She married Frank (San Francisco) Toribio, son of Mariano and Rosalia Medina Toribio, in 1925. They had two children, Felecita and Elsie Toribio. Toribio is featured prominently in Francis H. Harlow and Dwight P. Lanmon's The Pottery of Zia Pueblo, in a lengthy passage featuring multiple images and descriptions of the artist and her works. Toribio received a first prize at the 1940 Santa Fe Indian Market.

Condition: this Harviana Pino Toribio Zia Pueblo Double Rainbow Jar, c.1935 is in very good condition

Provenance: Formerly in the collection of Richard M. Howard of Santa Fe, then in the collection of Allen Hayes of California. Currently from the collection of an Adobe Gallery client.

Reference: Harlow, Francis H. & Dwight P.Lanmon. The Pottery of Zia Pueblo, School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, 2003

TAGS: Zia Pueblo, Rosalia Medina Toribio, Southwest Indian Pottery, Harviana Pino Toribio