Santa Clara Mimbres Antelope Red Sgraffito Jar - 1981 [SOLD]

Joseph Lonewolf, nephew of Margaret Tafoya, was born in 1932 and was from Santa Clara Pueblo.  Lonewolf started a career as a mechanic, and then became a trained machinist, making precision parts with fine engraving.  It was this skill that he used to transfer his talent from mechanical objects to precisely carved pottery.

In 1971, Lonewolf returned to Santa Clara Pueblo and put his skills to making pottery as had been taught to him by his mother, Agapita Silva Tafoya.  His father, Camilio Tafoya, had taken him as a child into the mountains where he witnessed petroglyphs carved into caves and on walls of cliffs.  Lonewolf took the lessons of his mother and field trips with his father and combined the two to arrive at intricately-carved designs on pottery.   If any potter mastered the technique of sgraffito design, it was Joseph Lonewolf.  He created the finest designs in sgraffito carving ever put on the face of a pottery vessel.

The pottery designs of the ancient Mimbres people of southwestern New Mexico are fascinating depictions of plants, animals and geometric motifs. Lonewolf recreated a Mimbres antelope on this miniature seed pot. Within the animal he etched geometric designs. The antelope walks on a carved desert floor. He is framed by stepped designs and a feather-like halo. Each tiny detail was executed with the delicate precision for which Lonewolf was known. The seed jar was made in 1981.

Condition: the Santa Clara Mimbres Antelope Red Sgraffito Jar - 1981 is in excellent condition, there are no scratches or defects

Provenance: From the estate of a collector in Colorado

Recommended Reading:  The Pottery Jewels of Joseph Lonewolf  by The Dandick Co.