Tesuque Polychrome footed bowl with handle [SOLD]

A Tesuque Pueblo Polychrome footed bowl with terraced sides leading to a handle. The upper half is slipped with a stone-polished cream-colored clay on which is painted a design in fugitive blue paint. A red band divides the slip from the unslipped lower body. Circa 1890.

According to Batkin, "collections made at Tesuque between 1870 and 1880 indicate that white-slipped polychrome pottery was the most popular..." The light blue design applied over the white slip is a pigment applied after firing, in the same tradition as was being done at San Ildefonso Pueblo.

The terrace steps leading up to the handle on this bowl are generally associated with ceremonial use, quite often as containers for sacred corn meal. Harlow states that pottery with the fugitive blue paint is exceedingly rare.