Zuni Pueblo Olla with Frogs, Deer, Tadpoles and Birds [SOLD]

Identification today of a long-ago artist of pottery is beset with many uncertainties but with documented examples in museum collections, many of which have been published in the last few decades, it is now with a little more certainty that we approach the task with much more ease.

In 2008, Francis Harlow and Dwight Lanmon published a 600-page book on Zuni Pueblo pottery collections that provides invaluable information, both in text and in photographs, and makes it somewhat easier to attribute a pottery vessel to the hands of a specific potter. It is investigative work such as theirs that has provided previously unpublished data from which collectors can acquire much knowledge.

It is with this book in hand that we identify the maker of this marvelously decorated Zuni olla as Catalina Zunie, who lived from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s and was one of the two more significant potters at Zuni during that time—the other being Tsayutitsa (ca.1871-1959).

Catalina Zunie, not only used a puki of small volume which resulted in the clay overflowing the edge of the puki bowl, but also an expressed flexure just above the maximum diameter of the jar's shoulder, both, in the manner of the pottery made a couple hundred years ago at Zuni Pueblo. Jars known to be made by Catalina Zunie exhibiting such early traits were later collected by C.G. Wallace. In this fine example the frogs have downturned rear legs and upturned front legs, possessing vertical white bars along their backs and are further painted in a manner stylistically that are nearly identical, both in color and texture, to documented examples of Catalina Zunie's pottery. The ultimate clue that this is the work of Catalina Zunie is verbal agreement by Dwight Lanmon that it is so.

Catalina Zunie is considered one of the master potters working in the early decades of the 20^th century. In addition to making pottery, she also was responsible for the survival of such by teaching pottery making in the day school at the pueblo at the time when pottery making was dying out.

This jar by Catalina Zunie is beautifully decorated with frogs in bas relief, traditional Zuni heartline deer, tadpoles and exquisite Zuni birds. The small puki base adds the classic Zuni look of older vessels.

Condition: The head of one of the frogs was apparently broken off and glued back into position although it is not visually noticeable.

Recommended Reading: The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo by Francis Harlow and Dwight Lanmon

Provenance: from the collection of a California resident

Photograph Credit:  Catalina Zunie, c. 1929. Photograph by Pedro Lemos.  Courtesy of the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Cat. No. AC02: 876a