Nineteenth Century Cochiti Dough Bowl [SOLD]

This is an exceptionally fine dough bowl from Cochiti Pueblo, decorated in a white slip with black guaco design and a red band that qualifies it as a Polychrome type.   It dates to circa 1880s and is typically Cochiti in all technical aspects: crystalline-rock temper in the paste, stone-polished underbody, red slipped interior, rag-wiped bentonite slip and black guaco paint. The stone-polished red band below the design panel is a trait of pottery of the late nineteenth century.

Cochiti, at the turn of the century, made very little pottery for local use, importing it instead from Acoma, Zuni and Zia Pueblos.  What pottery the potters were making was mostly limited to figurative type—effigy vessels and human and animal figurines.  Occasionally, potters made vessels that they needed for daily use such as dough bowls. 

The fantastic vessel shape of this bowl is the first thing to attract attention. The flat bottom rises to a voluminous body that curves inward above mid body and then turns upward at the rim. The sheer mass of the vessel commands respect. The bowl is a fine example of Cochiti mastery. The rim is black and the interior of the bowl is a beautiful stone-polished dark red color.  The narrow band of decoration, typical of nineteenth-century vessels, is framed by double lines at top and bottom.

The bowl is one inch taller on one side than on the opposite side.  It has been speculated that this was not always unintentional as working bread dough in the bowl would be easier if the bowl were lower—similar to tilting it toward the worker.   The bowl is extraordinary beautiful.

Condition: structurally in very good condition.  There is a crack on the interior which does not penetrate to the exterior and there are some abrasions to the painted areas on the exterior.

Provenance: from the home of an Albuquerque family

Recommended Reading: A River Apart: The Pottery of Cochiti & Santo Domingo Pueblos by Valerie Verzuh, et al.  This book is currently not available at Adobe Gallery