Well Documented Polychrome Jar by Nampeyo [SOLD]

“Sold and warranted genuine by the Francis E. Lester Co. Mesilla Park, New Mexico” is a treat to see on a label affixed to a pottery vessel.  It provides clear provenance and helps select a date for the pottery.

Francis E. Lester had been schooled in England and was briefly a businessman there.  In 1891, he accepted a position as librarian, registrar, and secretary of the faculty of the newly-formed College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Mesilla Park, New Mexico, which eventually became New Mexico State University.  Mesilla is in the Las Cruces area, near El Paso, Texas.

Lester established a business as a curio dealer in Mesilla in 1899.  It was so successful that he resigned from the college in 1906 and became a full-time curio dealer, which lasted until 1914, at which time he moved to California.  During his time as a curio dealer, he worked with and purchased items from J. S. Candelario, merchant of Santa Fe; H. H. Tammen Co. of Denver, Colorado; and C. N. Cotton and Juan Lorenzo Hubbell of Ganado, Arizona. 

It is quite likely that Lester purchased Hopi pottery from Hubbell at Ganado.  This jar, bearing his paper label could not have been sold by Lester after 1914, the year he moved to California.  If it was made in the first decade of the 20^th century, as we suspect, it was most certainly made by Nampeyo of Hano.

The jar bears resemblance to many of Nampeyo’s jars with a wide mid-body and a short rising rim that rolls outward just so slightly.  The design on the shoulder was arranged in a beautiful style and the painting was applied with extreme precision.  The rectangular element suspended from the design is a variation of the Sikyatki bird design used by Nampeyo on many examples of her pottery.  The extension of the fine black line from the upper and lower designs serves to provide upper and lower framing lines.

Condition: the jar is in excellent structural condition with what appears to be repair to a small spot on the underside and a very minor touch-up at the rim.

Provenance: this Well Documented Polychrome Jar by Nampeyo is from the collection of a gentleman from Texas

Reference and Recommended Reading:  The Native American Curio Trade in New Mexico by Jonathan Batkin