San Ildefonso Pueblo Shallow Polychrome Bowl [SOLD]

Crucita Gonzales Calabaza (1921-1999) Blue Corn has been given credit for reviving Polychrome pottery at San Ildefonso Pueblo. After Maria and Julian Martinez made Black-on-black pottery famous, the Polychrome wares faded into history. Blue Corn produced blackware and redware but her specialty was her beautiful Polychrome pottery.

Blue Corn and her husband, Sandy, spent two years in the 1960s experimenting with slips in an effort to revive nineteenth-century Polychrome wares of San Ildefonso Pueblo. She stone polished the base slip in the manner it was done before introduction of the Cochiti slip in 1905, which required only rag polishing. In doing this, she achieved a highly burnished finish. To this she applied the matte paint designs at which she was so adept.

Other potters at San Ildefonso made Polychrome wares.  The most notable ones were, of course, Maria and Julian Martinez, who did occasionally produce Polychrome jars and bowls, Carmelita and Carlos Dunlap, mother and son potters, made some individually and together, and Popovi Da made plates, bowls and jars in the Polychrome technique.  Among the older potters who made polychrome wares, there were Toña Pena Vigil and her daughter Martina Vigil with her husband Florentino Montoya. There were others but these are the best known.

This shallow bowl is an excellent display of Blue Corn's masterful layout of a traditional eagle feather design. Each element of design was executed by outlining the intended design with black pigment. The feather tips were executed in brick red color. Two framing lines outline an area below the feather design that were then filled in with a mauve slip.  It is signed Blue Corn San Ildefonso Pueblo on the underside.

Condition: this San Ildefonso Pueblo Shallow Polychrome Bowl is in very good condition

Provenance:  from the collection of a family from Colorado

Recommended Reading:  Pueblo Indian Pottery: 750 Artist Biographies by Gregory Schaaf