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Home > Art > Acoma jar with bird designs

Acoma jar with bird designs

Acoma jar painted beige, rust orange, and black, with an abstract bird design.
Artist

Unknown Artist

Date

early 1900s

Medium

Ceramic

Object Type

Pottery

Dimensions

6 3/4 x 9 in. (17.2 x 22.9 cm)

Collecting Area

Native American Pottery

Credit Line

The Vilcek Foundation

Accession Number

VF2019.02.02

Copyright

© The Vilcek Foundation

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Acoma animal bird ceramic crosshatch pottery rain cloud
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Acoma jar painted beige, rust orange, and black, with an abstract bird design.

About the Object

This three-color Acoma polychrome olla (water jar) features cream slip with black and orange painted decoration. The all-over-designed water jar consists of black framing lines at the mouth and above the orange base. The body decoration is outlined with black-filled doubled triangles that may represent rain symbolism, such as rain clouds at the top, and mountains at the bottom. The center decoration is a red split square, possibly a pathway symbol, surrounded by attached hachured (crosshatched) triangles that can symbolize rain and connected black-filled squares. Above and below the embellished orange center are stylized bird forms. The center decoration continues around the body of the jar.

 

Additional Information

The stylized bird forms, in which their outward-facing beaks evolve into spiraling forms, are traditional bird motifs prominent in 18th-century Ako polychrome pottery. Today, it is common to find bird designs that follow the arrangement of parrots, which are typically depicted in profile with a curved break alongside separated bird feathers.

Unknown Artist;
[Trinity Antiques, Santa Fe, NM];
Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection, New York, NY, 1994-2019 (1994.02.1);

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