Kewa (Santo Domingo) Dough Bowl with Flared Rim [SOLD]

One wonders why there was so little study of the early 20^th century pottery of the pueblos when there was so much available.  Most likely the answer is two-fold.  Anthropologists were most interested in what could be excavated from buried sites and not what was available in the pueblo kitchen of the time.  Secondly, the Museum of New Mexico director, Edgar L. Hewett, was more interested in exploring the past rather than the current in the 1920s.

Some of the most amazing pottery was that seen in pueblo households in the late 1800s to early 1900s.  Representatives of the Smithsonian and other museums did collect from the pueblo home but they were seeing everything as ethnographic material and not as we view it today as art.  There was no attempt by these early collectors to describe and classify as art what they gathered, but only classified it as ethnographic material.

It is today’s researchers, dealers, and collectors who analyze and appreciate each bowl or jar for its uniqueness and beauty rather than its functional value.

This small dough bowl was nothing more to the pueblo owner than a bowl for making bread dough and allowing it to rise in preparation for baking.  The rolled-out rim of this bowl served the function of working dough without a straight wall interfering with the cook’s arms.  We see it today as a graceful curve of the side walls allowing for display of an interior design, a design, in this instance, referred to as “tulips.”  The exterior design is a very traditional arrangement of black triangles forming a star pattern.  The bowl probably dates to circa 1900-1920.

Condition: UV examination does not reveal any repair or restoration.  There are two insignificant chips at the rim on the exterior.

Provenance: from the extensive collection of a Santa Fe resident who is unfortunately moving to another city and found it necessary to greatly reduce her collection.

Recommended Reading: A River Apart – The Pottery of Cochiti & Santo Domingo Pueblos, edited by Valerie K. Verzuh