Black and Red on Cream Aguilar Jar [SOLD]

The Aguilar sisters produced exceptional black-on-cream traditional pottery jars and sold them to tourists passing through the pueblo on the AT+SF train that stopped at the pueblo daily. Around 1910, sales began to drop and the sisters mentioned that to the trader at the Santo Domingo Trading Post. He suggested that they experiment with different ways of decorating their pottery. They accepted his advice and developed two styles of decorating: one was red and black with white outlining; the other was black with thin white outlining.

Asunción Caté seemed to prefer the style using black and red, such as this one. The contrast of these two strong colors, outlined in thin white lines, produced a bold visual statement. They were immensely popular. By 1914, when the sisters ceased making pottery because of advanced age, they had created a new style that has never been taken up by any other potters except on an occasional basis.

There was some minor professional restoration performed on this jar.