Acoma Pueblo Very Large Black-on-white Wedding Vessel [SOLD]

Although the wedding vessel has prehistoric precedents, it does not seem to have been made at Acoma Pueblo prior to 1900.  The very comprehensive 623-page book on Acoma Pueblo pottery by Harlow and Lanmon does not display a single wedding vessel.  Historic photographs reproduced in that book do not show wedding vessels either.  Rick Dillingham, in his book on Acoma pottery, hints at the impetus for potters making wedding vessels as probably dealers, who saw a market for something that could be explained as a ceremonial item used in weddings.  Double-spouted prehistoric and pre-Columbian vessels are not referred to as wedding vessels.  Most likely, we can credit Santa Fe merchants for influencing the creation of today’s wedding vessels.

Regardless of their beginnings, they do appear during the historic period and have now been on the market for over a hundred years.

This Polychrome wedding vessel, with an all-black design, dates to circa 1900-10.  That is based on the large and voluminous body and short spouts.  Later wedding vessels, after 1920, reversed that to a smaller body and long spouts.  The fine-line designs incorporated in triangles and pyramidal shapes are documented on Acoma ollas as early as 1900.  The design is a comprehensive one with many shapes.  There are checkerboards, circles with floral hints, clouds filled in with solid pigment, spirals of the type seen on early Zuni jars, and others.  It is a pleasing mixture that fits the voluminous body of the vessel.

Condition: very good condition with very minor spalling.  The arched handle has had professional repairs

Provenance: this Acoma Pueblo Very Large Black-on-white Wedding Vessel is from an individual in Santa Fe

References:

        Lanmon, Dwight P. and Francis H. Harlow. The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo, 2013

        Dillingham, Rick. Acoma & Laguna Pottery, 1992