Zia Pueblo Polychrome Pictorial Jar with Feather Motif [SOLD]

Isabel Medina Toribio had a diverse repertoire of designs she used on pottery during her half- century career. The white section on this jar contains two design elements associated with her.  The feathers with black dots and the orange squares outlined in red appear on documented pottery known to have been made by her.

According to Harlow and Lanmon, “The square eye in the clusters of feathers may be a signature for Trinidad Medina (1883-1969) and Isabel Toribio.  The feature is a holdover from the abundant use of rectangular eyes on Zia pottery of the early 1800s.”  There are two jars in the School for Advanced Research collection with feathers like the ones on this jar, and both of those are attributed to Isabel Medina Toribio, circa 1920-1925.  There is no doubt that Isabel made this jar as well.  The birds on this jar are of the same style as on the jar at SAR, another confirmation that this jar was made by Isabel Medina.

The jar was slipped in a beautiful dark orange slip, stone polished, and then overpainted with white and black design elements.  The source of the white paint is clay and the source of the black paint is mineral.  The base of the jar is concave, the rim is black and there is a red slip wiped on the jar below the design panel.

What makes this jar so strikingly beautiful is the large section of white design, more than usually seen on jars of similar size.  There are two all-black flying birds which Harlow and Lanmon indicated were a standard feature of Zia bird jars of the late 1920s.

Isabel was photographed twice by Edward S. Curtis in 1925 in which she was beautifully dressed in native attire with multiple necklaces, bracelets and rings.  The earliest surviving documented jar by Isabel Medina Toribio was collected in 1922 and gifted to the Smithsonian by Marjorie Merriweather Post. Harlow and Lanmon 2003

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: from a collection from San Francisco

Reference: The Pottery of Zia Pueblo by Francis H. Harlow and Dwight P. Lanmon, 2003

Picture of Isabel Medina Toribio - Zia Pueblo - Photo Source:  by Edward S. Curtis, 1925