Acoma Pueblo Standing Female Figurine with Basket on Back [SOLD]

This is a marvelous pottery figurine of a female with a burden basket on her back. She is not signed except for Acoma, N. Mex. on the underside in fired-on paint. She is hollow.

I have seen three of these in past years and all had Mary Histia's name added as an afterthought, as if someone wrote her name on the piece after purchasing it. I do not know if this or the others were or were not made by Histia. The condition is very good. I see no damage or problems of any kind.

There have been two Mary Histia potters from Acoma. The most famous one is the one commonly called Acoma Mary; based on the notation "Acoma, Mary holding olla, 1900," on a photograph by Adam Clark Vroman. Over the years, the comma between Acoma and Mary began to be overlooked so that she began to be called Acoma Mary, which is incorrect as that was a misinterpretation of Vroman's notation.

The second Mary Histia is known today as Mary Lewis Garcia, daughter of Lucy Lewis. Mary's first husband was David Histia, Sr.; therefore she was, for a time, Mary Histia.

Provenance: From the estate of Transcendental artist Florence Pierce of Albuquerque who passed away in 2007 at the age of 89.