Four-color Acoma Pueblo Canteen with Parrot Design [SOLD]

The most frequently sought design on Acoma pottery is one featuring parrots and flora, especially executed in a four-color palette. Deep red is usually one of the four colors, but in this instance the potter has substituted gray for deep red, so that we have white slip, black, gray and orange decorations to complete the four colors.

The canteen was most likely made to sell to a non-pueblo resident since it is signed Acoma, N.M. on the underside. A piece made for pueblo use would most likely not be signed. Although made for sale, the canteen evidences use as there are slight calcium deposits on the underside where water would have settled when the canteen was resting on its bottom or hanging from the attached rope. The calcium deposit is minimal but does serve to identify use of the canteen as a water container.

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