Michael Kabotie Hopi Triple Overlay Large Sterling Silver Cuff Bracelet 2007

Unauthorized reproduction or use is strictly prohibited by law.

A magnificent Hopi “triple-overlay” style large scale Sterling silver cuff bracelet by Michael Kabotie (Lomawywesa), 2007

Some of the most actively in-demand Native American artwork in existence today is Michael Kabotie’s (1942-2009)

extraordinary Hopi silver overlay jewelry which is coveted and sought after worldwide for its unique and

distinctive beauty and artistic expressiveness.

Michael Kabotie grew up in one of the most inspiring artistic environments imaginable. His Father, Fred Kabotie (1900-1986), was one of the most significant Hopi artists and educators of the modern era and the important Co-Founder of The Hopi Tribe’s official Hopi Arts and Crafts Guild. In that role, along with his colleague, jeweler

Paul Saufkie, Fred Kabotie originated and established the enduring tradition of Hopi silver overlay jewelry which

would later become one of his son Michael’s primary artistic vehicles.

The unique “triple-overlay” style of overlay, which Michael originally developed himself, allowed him to achieve a

far greater sense of depth, detail and precision in his jewelry than is possible with conventional two-layer Hopi silver overlay. By variously working the surfaces and layers with the judicious application of stampwork, chisel work, shading, incising and notching on the top layer of silver and the strategic use of cut-out and tapered panels the piece acquires

a marvelous, and intense sculptural quality and a distinct depth and vividness of design, almost like a beautifully hand-carved sculptural painting, if you will, vividly rendered by the various artist’s marks into three dimensions.

The resounding artistic theme that informed and inspired Michael Kabotie’s art for most of his life and career were

the magnificent ancient Hopi painted kiva murals discovered in the 1930’s at the ancient ruined Hopi villages of Awatovi and Kawaika-a on Antelope Mesa on the far eastern edge of the Hopi Reservation. Fred Kabotie assisted the 1935-39 Harvard University Peabody Museum archaeological expedition that discovered and excavated these magnificent murals and he interpreted and presented them in a set of original paintings done for The Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco Bay in 1939; a project in which he was assisted by the talented young Hopi artist, Charles Loloma (1921-1991). These mural paintings are now held in the permanent collection of The Denver Art Museum. Young Michael Kabotie was completely entranced by the awesome beauty, imagery, majesty and meaning of these sacred kiva paintings and he subsequently interpreted and reinterpreted them in various ways and forms throughout his life in his own paintings and drawings and particularly in his spectacular jewelry pieces.

At left, Michael Kabotie, c. 2004, wearing one of the six silver panels of his reconstruction of an ancient Awatovi Hopi kiva decorated with kiva murals entitled

“The Silver Room of Awatovi”. At center, a color plate from The Peabody Museum's Harvard University Awatovi Expedition Report with a detailed reproduction

of one of the ancient Awatovi kiva murals. At right, the six silver panels from Michael's "Silver Room of Awatovi". The size and scale of this bracelet and its design elements reminds us of some of these large silver panels. Michael made only two of these silver room sculptures, both of which we sold a number of years ago.

Left photo source and © "Totems to Turquoise", by Lois Dubin and Peter Whiteley, American Museum of Natural History, Harry Abrams, New York, 2003, pp. 176-177.

Center photo source and © The Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Above, a detail of a 2001 Michael Kabotie Hopi mural study drawing depicting The San Francisco Peaks outside Flagstaff, Arizona as being the legendary ancestral home of the Hopi Kachina spirit beings.

This extraordinary bracelet is a perfect example. “Best” is a relative term at best, but in our 30-plus years of dealing closely with Michael Kabotie and his incomparable silverwork, this bracelet is one of the single finest pieces of his that we have ever had or ever seen. It’s essentially a highly complex miniature painting in silver depicting ranges of stylized mountains amidst swirling clouds and rainstorms, with a surrounding border of repeating stylized cloud designs.

The layers of brightly polished silver, darkened oxidized etched silver and added stampwork and etching add great depth, dimensionality and detail to the design.

The entire design presentation is almost certainly a stylized representation of a scene of the local San Francisco Peaks located exactly in Hopi’s backyard, so to speak, just outside Flagstaff, Arizona, some eighty miles as the crow flies from the Hopi mesas. These majestic peaks are central to ancient Hopi mythology and ceremonialism as being the ancestral “Home” of their Kachina spirit beings. The Michael Kabotie mural study of a kachina being and its power manifestations emerging from its home under the San Francisco Peaks shown below illustrates this interpretation very well.

The bracelet measures an impressively-sized 2 3/8" in continuous width all the way around. The inner circumference end-to-end is 5 3/4" and the gap between the terminals is 7/8" for a total interior circumference of 6 5/8". The bracelet weighs a very substantial, but extremely comfortable 162 grams or 5 3/4 ounces. The bracelet is in absolutely outstanding, nearly immaculate original condition, quite remarkable for a nearly twenty-year old piece. Obviously, it

was worn very little and most carefully taken care of. There is a tiny original tooling mark visible here and there and perhaps an infinitesimal scratch or two, but overall it's pretty close to pristine, a 9.95 out of 10. The bracelet is properly signed “Lomawywesa”, Michael Kabotie’s Hopi name which means “Walking in Harmony”, in his customary cursive signature on the interior and it is also dated “07” and marked “Sterling”. The “Lomawywesa” part of the signature has been partially obscured probably from the bracelet’s final buffing and polishing, but this is of no particular consequence and clearly Michael Kabotie wasn’t worried about it at all.

“We the Hopi have a lot to offer from a spiritual standpoint and as a living force. We are hoping that from the presentation of our traditions and from the interpretation of the Hopi way in our art and paintings a new direction can come for American spirituality.”

-Michael Kabotie

On a personal note, we were quite fortunate to have been longtime friends and close professional colleagues of Michael Kabotie’s and we miss him and his exceptional good humor and unbridled creativity. We were very fortunate to purchase this bracelet a number of years ago from the personal collection of another good friend who is a curator at an important Southwestern museum so the bracelet has been in knowledgeable, “friendly” hands for some time since it was made which adds a nice personal element to its already remarkable story and artistic allure.

Since Michael Kabotie’s untimely and tragic death from the H1N1 flu virus in 2009, just two years after he made this bracelet and at the very height of his creative abilities, the very limited supply of Michael Kabotie jewelry has literally skyrocketed in value. It has almost completely disappeared from the marketplace and on the very rare occasions such as this when something, particularly something especially this great does become available, it vanishes very quickly,

as this piece almost certainly will.

This bracelet is a rare and outstanding treasure, as good as it ever gets in every way from an artist who consistently set the bar as high as it ever gets. This is a fleeting and rare opportunity to acquire a major and exceptionally beautiful prime example of Michael Kabotie’s unparalleled jewelry hand crafted at the height of his very considerable abilities, a rare and beautiful prize to be acquired, admired and worn with great pleasure and pride.

SOLD