Vintage Hopi Pottery Cylinder with Moth Designs

This polychrome pottery cylinder was created by an unknown Hopi potter. It likely was made for the tourist trade during the 1910s or 1920s. Its form and size are appealing, and its design is notably unusual.

A large moth design appears twice on the exterior, with the outlines in black and the wings filled in with a soft red. This is not an uncommon design, but it's rare to see it appear on a cylinder. Groups of lines hanging down from the moths might have been intended to symbolize rain, but they might also suggest movement to some. Three lines circle the cylinder below the rim. Curved triangular forms hang down from the lines, occupying the spaces in between the moths. Within these triangular forms, corn designs appear.

There are no additional design elements, leaving much of the cylinder undecorated. This works quite well, as the slip's coloration is beautiful. It shifts from cream to orange to gold, as historic Hopi pots often do. Faint clouds of gray appear in certain areas, and an unusual early repair of some sort exists near the rim in the interior.

Condition: Minor cracks run vertically from rim. At the edge of one, an odd repair appears in the interior at the rim. This appears to be an early home repair, likely made by an early owner.

Provenance: this Vintage Hopi Pottery Cylinder with Moth Designs is from the collection of Bob & Louise Sluder, Dealers/Collectors active from 1955 to 1990

Recommended Reading: America's Great Lost Expedition, The Thomas Keam Collection of Hopi Pottery from the Second Hemenway Expedition, 1890-1894 by Edwin Wade, et al.

TAGS: Southwest Indian Pottery, Hopi Pueblo, Hopituh Shi-nu-mu