Special Value Offer: Zuni Pueblo Serving Bowl with Red Underbody [SOLD]

Special Value Offer: The owner of this bowl has agreed to a 25% price reduction from the original price of $5750 to a new price of $4300.

Occasionally we acquire a piece of pottery that is a joy to hold and a visual delight. Such is this marvelous Zuni Pueblo serving bowl. Not only was it constructed by a master potter and painted by a talented artist, it was perhaps lovingly used in the pueblo for decades before someone talked the owner into parting with it. It dates to the last half of the nineteenth century. The paste materials are typically Zuni; white and chunky in texture with the centuries old temper material of ground pottery shards. The use of old shards for temper evidences the regard of the pueblo peoples for the old works made by their predecessors. To add these remnants to the new work is a sign of respect.

The rim of the bowl flares outward slightly, imparting a graceful shape to what could be an otherwise uninteresting one. The bowl is slipped in traditional fashion with cream-colored clay, over which is painted the design in mineral and vegetal paints. The underbody is slipped in red, a tradition generally abandoned in the mid-1860s and completely abandoned by 1880. The exterior is decorated with the traditional prayer stick design used on every Zuni bowl made in the nineteenth century. It is thought that this was a woman's way to place her prayers since women do not make prayer sticks.

The interior decoration begins with a brown rim, below which is a wave-like element encircling the bowl that is painted deep red and outlined in brown. Below this are two wide parallel framing lines with a very distinctive ceremonial break. The main body of the interior is elaborately designed with polka-dotted floral elements and red Zuni volute elements without the addition of brown outlining. The base of the bowl features a red square, outlined in brown, which is again outlined with a wavy brown frame.

This is one of the most extraordinary bowls we have had the pleasure to handle. A two-square-inch piece of clay blew out during firing, but the potter placed it back in and “cemented” it in place so that she could still use the bowl for home use. The piece has been professionally repaired at that point of damage. Provenance: Cody Wyoming Collection. This Zuni Serving Bowl was part of the exhibit CODY, WYOMING POTTERY COLLECTION June 10, 2006 until September 10, 2006 and BOWLS: A Pueblo Necessity December 15, 2006 until December 31, 2006 presented at Adobe Gallery Santa Fe.