San Ildefonso Buff-on-red Jar signed Marie [R]

The pottery of Maria and Julian Martinez is much more diverse than the casual observer recognizes.  After their marriage in 1904, Maria was making pottery and Julian began decorating it for her.  Their first pottery was the traditional San Ildefonso Polychrome style and this continued for another decade before they began making blackware.  Maria was an excellent potter and Julian an excellent painter.  He painted the designs with mineral paints using a paint brush fashioned from the leaf of a yucca plant.  Julian had a natural artistic sense and quickly became proficient.

Around 1912, Maria and Julian began producing plain polished Blackware pottery based on the tradition of the Tewa-speaking pueblos—Santa Clara, San Juan, San Ildefonso and Nambe.  By 1919-20, Maria and Julian made a true discovery with the development of Black-on-black ware.  Previously the Tewa black pottery was without decoration.  It was Maria and Julian who devised the manner of adding a design.

Originally, Maria did not sign her pottery as it was and is the tradition of Pueblo Indians not to stand out from others of the village.  Everyone is equal and everyone participates in events.  Eventually she was convinced that it was important for collectors to have signed pottery, so, in 1923, she began signing the name Marie.  The name Marie was selected because it was believed that the general public would understand Marie rather than Maria.  Additionally, Marie was not her name as everyone in the village knew her by her Tewa name Poveka.  Perhaps this was her way of satisfying the collectors without breaking pueblo tradition.  Around 1925, Maria started adding Julian's name to the wares.

During the early years of their collaborative efforts, Maria and Julian produced Polychrome, Black-on-red, Buff-on-red, and Black-on-black pottery.  Of these, the redware is the rarest of all pottery they produced.   Black ware was so popular with collectors in the early years that they rarely fired any red ware. This piece, signed Marie, would have been made between 1923 and 1925, the only period that their pottery was signed in that manner. The design is also an earlier style of Julian's work. The checkerboard elements running vertical on the shoulder rarely appear after the 1930s.

This is a rare opportunity for a collector to add a piece of very hard-to-find Maria and Julian pottery to his or her collection.

Condition: The vessel is in very good condition; however the red slip shows some scarring due to moisture. There is no other damage, however.

Provenance:  originally from a Minnesota collector

                     Recently from the estate of Michael F. Frost

Recommended Reading: The Legacy of Maria Poveka Martinez by Richard Spivey