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Lot 282

Kiua Storage Pottery Jar
Sale 930 - Native American Art, Session I
Sep 17, 2021 10:00AM ET
Live / Cincinnati
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Estimate
$3,000 - 5,000
Price Realized
$10,000
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
Kiua Storage Pottery Jar
second half 19th century

height 15 1/2 inches x diameter 17 1/2 inches

Formal and stately with bold geometric designs are the hallmarks of a pottery type called Kiua Polychrome, which originated at Santo Domingo and Cochiti in the latter part of the 1700s and continues to be made up to the present, especially at Santo Domingo, for which the Indian name is Kiua…

The origins of Kiua Polychrome are obscure. Prior to circa 1680, the standard type of pottery for the area is a glaze-ware style that is very different from the later ceramics. In the turmoil of revolt and reconquest, the glaze-paint technique was lost and for nearly a century we lose track of the evolution of pot making in these northeast Keres-language villages.

There are some meager clues that point to influence from both Jemez and the Tewa Pueblos to the north, but nothing can be said with certainty until the emergence of Kiua Polychrome, circa 1780. At that time the Tewa influence is pronounced, as manifested by materials (especially the vegetal black paint), by form, and to some extent by the earliest designs.
 
(Harlow, Frances H.  Two Hundred Years of Historic Pueblo Pottery: The Gallegos Collection 1990: plate 61)
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