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In our view, this lovely small pottery jar by the great Hopi pottery matriarch, Nampeyo of Hano (1859-1942),
is one of the first modern-era expressions of Pueblo “art pottery”, defined here as Pueblo pottery which is not intended for any particular indigenous or other utilitarian purpose or use, but instead intended for sale for decorative purposes only, as an object of art to be displayed, observed and admired. And though made in the Modern era of the early 20th century, it originally derives from a centuries-old decorative tradition in ancient Hopi culture, the extravagantly decorated swoopingly low-profile shaped "Sikytaki Polychrome" period jars and other pottery vessels of the 14th through 17th Centuries.
Archaeologists and Ethnologists have argued for decades about the functionality or not of these extraordinary jars. Some believe their extravagant decoration served a ceremonial purpose in that they were held upright in Kivas or ceremonial chambers and fed sacred corn pollen and other offering into their openings as a way of making offerings to the spirits. The existence of Sikytayki period similarly decorated large murals on the interior walls of ceremonial Kivas, with stylized supernatural and animal figures and other sacred symbols as seen below would seem to somewhat support this view for there is no other practical reason or manner in which these extremely large extravagantly decorated ceramics are very functional or useful for any utilitarian purpose.
Quick cut now to the closing years of the 19th century on the Hopi Mesas and the Smithsonian Institution’s 1895 excavation of the ruins of the Sikytaki village on the Hopi First Mesa directed by archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes (1850-1930). The many hundreds of Sikyatki pottery vessels unearthed there during this excavation spurred a renewed appreciation of these pottery forms and decorative symbols among modern day Hopi potters at the time and sparked a so-called "Sikyatki Revival" of pottery at Hopi of which Nampeyo was one the prime participants and of which this lovely little "seed" jar is the happy result. Small Hopi jars such as this are today commonly referred to as "seed" jars because of the ancient ancestral Hopi pottery form of small flat-topped jars which were used to store seeds of corn and other crops and covered with a flat rock.
Above left, Nampeyo making "Sikyatki Revival" style pottery jars, c. 1905. Above center, an extravagantly decorated ancient Hopi Sikyatki Polychrome type large low-profile jar with batwing, feather and figural kachina motifs, c. 1500-1550 A.D. Above right, a color plate from The Peabody Museum's Harvard University Awatovi Expedition Report with a detailed reproduction of one of the ancient Sikyatki Period kiva wall mural decorations discovered in the ruins of the ancient Hopi village of Awatovi.
Left photo source and © Suduva. Center photo source and © Bonhams. Right photo source and © The Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
“When I first began to paint, I used to go to the ancient village and pick up
pieces of pottery and copy the designs. That is how I learned to paint. But now,
I just close my eyes and see designs and I paint them.”
-Nampeyo
Above left, an early black and white photograph of Nampeyo making small "Sikyatki-Revival" pottery pieces such as this jar, c. 1900-1905.
Above right, the remarkably fine stone-polishing on this jar was accomplished by Nampeyo possibly using this very polishing stone or another one like it.
When she was a young woman, Nampeyo found this centuries-old polishing stone in the ruins of the ancient Hopi pottery-making village of Sikyatki and used it to polish her own pottery for many years. Later, she gave it as a special gift before her death in 1942 to her then-teenaged Great-Granddaughter, the now-also renowned Hopi potter, Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo (1928-2019). Dextra also used it on her pottery and many years later gifted it to her special close friend and ours, the late Santa Fe Native American Arts dealer, Martha Hopkins Struever (1931-2017) , who subsequently gave the stone to us.
The jar’s low-profile shape and form is inspired by Sikyatki as are its painted designs. The three-part horizontally opposed paired design layout, the "eagle tail" feather motif, the so-called “Kilroy” stylized kachina face motif and the stylized prayer plume design are all Nampeyo stylizations drawn from ancient Sikyatki inspiration. The jar’s small size is a modern-day adaptation of the ancestral Hopi "seed" jars created by Nampeyo and other contemporary Hopi potters for commercial purposes, possibly at the suggestion of early Hopi Anglo and Native Indian traders, such as Thomas Polacca, Thomas Varker Keam, Alexander Stephen and J.L. Hubbell.
The reason was quite simple, practical and self serving; such smaller “art” pottery vessels were much easier for
the rapidly increasing amounts of tourists flocking to Hopi in the early years of the 20th Century courtesy of the Santa Fe Railway and The Fred Harvey Company’s aggressive promotion of the region and its art and culture to pack and transport back on the Santa Fe Railway to their homes in Chicago, New York, Boston and elsewhere.
Seen In this light and context, this jar represents a fascinating confluence of the Hopi’s highly isolated and insular indigenous ancient past and their increasingly commercialized and widely exposed to other cultures and different people changed reality in the early years of the 20th century present and beyond. In this way, it should
be looked at, admired and valued for the highly beautiful and deeply historic art and cultural object it is.
"Nampeyo makes her designs after some she has seen on ancient ware."
-Hopi Ethnologist Alexander M. Stephen, 1893
The jewel-like perfection of this piece is marvelously, almost magically enhanced by two unique Nampeyo characteristics. First, its perfect hand done all-over stone polished surface and resulting almost glass-like or marble-like smoothness in the hand and second, its beautiful yellowish-whitish-pinkish firing clouds or "blushes" resulting from its very difficult to accomplish ultra-high temperature pottery firing with Hopi Lignite coal, a painstaking ancient Sikytaki-era method meticulously revived and perfectly performed by Nampeyo.
The jar measures 6" in width and 2 1/2" in height and it is in generally excellent original condition and particularly so for its fairly advanced 110-115 years of age with no cracks and no significant chips other than a few very minor nicks around the rim and some minor surface abrasions around the body. A thorough examination of the vessel under Ultraviolet light reveals no restoration or overpainting in evidence anywhere. The jar was most likely purchased new either directly from Nampeyo or from a nearby Southwestern trading post by an intrepid early 20th Century tourist and then carefully wrapped, carried back home and proudly displayed and very well cared for since that time by its subsequent owners, of whom you might very possibly be the next fortunate one.
Price $2,850
A historic “Sikytaki-Revival” style Hopi polychrome pottery seed jar by Nampeyo of Hano, c.1910
