Ancestral Pueblo, Mesa Verde region, Colorado, circa 1100 AD
Ceramic, black on white
Height 5 inches (12.7 cm), diameter 4 1/2 inches (11.4 cm) not including handle
Provenance: Fred Lau, Paradise Valley, Arizona; Billy Schenck, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Published: Women Artists of the Ancient Southwest, Schenck Southwest Publishing, Santa Fe, 2024, p. 3.40
The mug tapers from a wide flat base to a narrower mouth, with a broad strap handle rising at the shoulder and returning to the body in a full loop. Two principal registers carry the decoration, an upper band of interlocking spirals whose arms hook back on themselves in reserved white against a solid black ground, and a lower band of stepped frets built from squared hooks running continuously around the circumference. Groups of fine parallel lines separate the registers and encircle the rim, the paint is a dense mineral black laid over a chalky white slip, and the surface carries fine crazing throughout with abrasion along the outer curve of the handle.
Mugs of this shape belong to the Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and are not found in quantity elsewhere in the Ancestral Pueblo world. The form has no clear domestic parallel and its restricted distribution has long been read as evidence of a specialised use, though what was drunk from them is not settled. The layout here follows the regional convention of banded registers divided by line groups, painted freehand, with the spiral arms meeting cleanly where each pattern closes.
Not found on Federal or State land.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Ancestral Pueblo, Mesa Verde region, Colorado, circa 1100 AD
Ceramic, black on white
Height 5 inches (12.7 cm), diameter 4 1/2 inches (11.4 cm) not including handle
Provenance: Fred Lau, Paradise Valley, Arizona; Billy Schenck, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Published: Women Artists of the Ancient Southwest, Schenck Southwest Publishing, Santa Fe, 2024, p. 3.40
The mug tapers from a wide flat base to a narrower mouth, with a broad strap handle rising at the shoulder and returning to the body in a full loop. Two principal registers carry the decoration, an upper band of interlocking spirals whose arms hook back on themselves in reserved white against a solid black ground, and a lower band of stepped frets built from squared hooks running continuously around the circumference. Groups of fine parallel lines separate the registers and encircle the rim, the paint is a dense mineral black laid over a chalky white slip, and the surface carries fine crazing throughout with abrasion along the outer curve of the handle.
Mugs of this shape belong to the Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and are not found in quantity elsewhere in the Ancestral Pueblo world. The form has no clear domestic parallel and its restricted distribution has long been read as evidence of a specialised use, though what was drunk from them is not settled. The layout here follows the regional convention of banded registers divided by line groups, painted freehand, with the spiral arms meeting cleanly where each pattern closes.
Not found on Federal or State land.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
