Kewa (Santo Domingo) Aguilar Black-on-Cream Jar [R]

The Aguilar sisters were recognized as master potters long before they created the bold black and black and red designs we attribute to them today.  Their early works were traditional Santo Domingo Polychrome in design and layout but were among the finest being produced at the pueblo in the late 1800s and very early 1900s.  Their handling of the design style, their precision with paints, and the overall geometrics were unequalled. 

Both sisters excelled at building a jar to an elegant shape with the body being beautifully round and bulbous and rising to a long graceful neck.  The neck on this jar could be compared to the beautiful long, thin and graceful neck of a Victorian lady as presented in The New Yorker in the 1920s. 

The bold black triangles that cover the body of the jar could have been a precursor to the bold black and red designs that followed this period.  It is easy to imagine that the potter thought of painting the white triangles red which was what eventually occurred in those magnificent black and red jars they produced.

Condition: there has been some repairs and over-paint at a section of the rim.  It is not apparent until examined with UV lighting.

Recommended Reading:  Santo Domingo Pottery of the "Aguilar" Type, by Frederick H. Douglas. Clearing House for Southwestern Museums, Denver Art Museum, Newsletter No. 37, June 1941.

Provenance: from a gentleman from Colorado