Tesuque Pueblo Historic Small Pictorial Serving Pottery Bowl [SOLD]

This bowl has the classic shape of the historic period 1880 pottery from Tesuque Pueblo.  As traditional, the bottom is flat, and the vessel wall expands outward dramatically and then curves in just so slightly before rolling out again at the rim.  It’s like a cinched belt at the rim.  The lower two/thirds of the exterior wall has a polished red slip, leaving a third of the upper wall for design.  A wiped-on red slip separates these divisions.

The design on the interior is fanciful and delightful with four birds, wings spread, flying around a star-shape medallion in the center bottom.  The interior rim design consists of a continuous series of rain clouds in dark black pigment.  Just below the rim is another series of clouds, also in dark black pigment.  On the exterior of the bowl, the design is a chain of semicircle loops above which are black seed-shape dots and below which are suspended similar shapes.  The rim is black with a ceremonial line break. The design was applied over a cream slip that has darkened and crazed with time, providing a beautiful patina.

The pueblos nearest to Santa Fe—Tesuque, Cochiti, Santo Domingo, Santa Clara, and San Ildefonso—were the earliest ones who made pottery to be sold.  Santa Fe merchants encouraged them to provide pottery for their shops because of the influx of tourists when the train arrived in New Mexico in 1879.  Tesuque is best known for making Rain God figurines, but the potters there also made some of the most amazing traditional pottery as well.  This bowl is striking evidence of the quality pottery from the hands of Tesuque potters.

Tesuque Pueblo is located nine miles from Santa Fe, the closest pueblo to the City Different.  The original Tesuque of the early Spanish period stood three miles east of the present village. Old Tesuque is of special interest in connection with the Rebellion of 1680.  It was there that the first blood was shed on the evening of August 9, when a Spaniard named Cristobal de Herrera was murdered.  It was from Tesuque on that same day that two Indians, Catua and Omtua, hastened to Santa Fe, giving the Spaniards the first warning of the great revolt planned by all of the Pueblo tribes, and when the leaders learned that their plot was known they decided to strike the blow on August 10 instead of the thirteenth, the date originally set.

Condition: A section of the exterior, near the rim, apparently popped out during firing and was glued back in place.  It is visible as a darker section because it fired differently after popping out.  It appears to have been removed and professionally replaced later.  There are a couple of slip cracks and some crazing.

Provenance: this Tesuque Pueblo Historic Small Pictorial Serving Pottery Bowl is from a gentleman from New Jersey who is beginning to downsize his collection

Recommended Reading: Pottery of the Pueblos of New Mexico 1700 - 1940 by Jonathan Batkin

Relative Links: Southwest Indian Pottery, Tesuque Pueblo, Historic Pottery