Hopi-Tewa Pottery Ladle with Cat Image Handle [SOLD]

This Hopi-Tewa pottery small ladle has a cat image on the handle.  There is a second bowl serving as the body of the cat.  The ladle bowl is decorated simply with triangular cloud elements around the rim.  The cat’s body is decorated with a double row of small openings.  Red slip surrounds the cat's body and the ladle rim.  This is typical of Hopi-Tewa souvenir items made for the tourist trade at the Grand Canyon and at The Fred Harvey Company shops.  The use of cat images is very rare on pueblo pottery.

There are many ladles in the Thomas V. Keam Collection, now housed at the Peabody Museum of Harvard University.  The Keam Collection was part of a larger collection donated to the museum in 1894 from the estate of Mary Hemenway of Boston.  Some of the ladles have images on the handles, but none with a cat.

A metal stand is provided so that the ladle may be displayed in an upright position.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: this Hopi-Tewa Pottery Ladle with Cat Image Handle is from the estate of Henry Christensen, former attorney at law of New York

Recommended Reading: Historic Hopi Ceramics: The Thomas V. Keam Collection of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, by Edwin L. Wade and Lea S. McChesney

Relative Links: tourist pottery, Hopi Pueblo, The Fred Harvey Company, pottery figurine