Special Value Offer: Storage Jar with Lizards and Toads [SOLD]

Special Value Offer: The consignor of this Cochiti olla has authorized us to reduce the price by 1/3rd from the original price of $4500 to a new price of $3000.

The pueblo culture has existed for 2000 years in the Southwest United States, a region with abundant sunshine but little moisture. That is a reason the Pueblo Indians settled in villages along the Rio Grande and the western Pueblos settled near the Rio Puerco and the Zuni Rivers. It was from these great sources of water that the villagers grew crops and found drinking water. Without pottery to store water and grain, the existence of the people would have been inconceivable.

Since the ending of the 19th century, pottery has essentially been overlooked as a pueblo utilitarian item and has taken on the purpose of a symbolic form of pueblo culture and an economic product providing survival means for many families.

This Cochiti jar would have, at one time, served as a container for water or food, but now it is a cultural identity art object of the pueblos. It is very traditional to Cochiti Pueblo pottery in materials and construction. The addition of lizards and toads in bas relief is an outgrowth of the pueblo’s long tradition of figurative pottery. It was a natural progression to take the small animalitos the potters were known for producing and attach them to the surface of jars.

The jar is in excellent condition. It appears to date to mid-20th century and is not signed with a potter’s name.