San Ildefonso Polished Red Bowl signed Marie and Julian [SOLD]

Maria and Julian’s early pottery was the traditional Polychrome wares that were prevalent at San Ildefonso Pueblo.  In 1908. Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett encouraged Maria to make pottery of the style being excavated on the Pajarito Plateau.  All of the ones she made then were of the Polychrome style.  It was not until around 1912 that Maria and Julian began producing plain polished Black ware of the style traditional to the northern pueblos—San Ildefonso, San Juan, Nambe and Santa Clara.  Black pottery existed at these pueblos at the time, and before, but Maria and Julian refined it and achieved a much more highly polished finish.  In 1919-20, they developed the Black-on-black technique, the pottery that made them internationally famous.

The difference between black pottery and red pottery is nothing more than a firing technique.  All black pottery starts off as redware, as in this bowl.  A deep red slip is placed over the tan color clay, highly polished and then prepared for firing.  If the firing is allowed to burn out naturally, the pottery will come out of the firing in the color red.  If the fire is smothered with manure at the later stages, so that the fire is starved of oxygen, the pottery will come out black.  Ceramicists, describing ancient styles of Old World pottery, state that iron impurities in clay form red oxide at red heat, but if air is lacking during firing, iron impurities in clay form black magnetite.  The local red clay is heavy in iron content so turns black in a reduction firing.

Maria and Julian produced traditional San Ildefonso Polychrome pottery, highly polished red and black pottery, and finally, black-on-black pottery.  They were masters at all techniques.

Redware is more scarce than blackware and Maria and Julian were encouraged to make black because it was in high demand on the market, much more so than red.  Fortunately, they did make some redware.  This deep bowl is totally polished redware devoid of decoration.  It is signed Marie & Julian into the clay body on the underside.

Condition: structurally in original condition, but there is abrasion at the edge on one part of the exterior

Provenance: from the collection of a family from Pennsylvania

Reference and Recommended Reading: The Legacy of Maria Poveka Martinez by Richard L. Spivey, 2003