A Rare Sikyatki Polychrome Jar

circa 1500, of carinated form with slightly flaring rim, finely painted in sienna and dark brown against a burnished yellow slip, with cleaved parallel bands enclosing a frieze of highly stylized feather motifs, comprised of stepped and hooked devices, decorated with very fine hatching.

Acquired from James Reid, Santa Fe

For related examples and a discussion of Sikyatki pottery please see Alfred E. Dittert, Jr. and Fred Plog, Generations in Clay: Pueblo Pottery of the American Southwest, 1980. pp. 110 – 111, figs. 135 – 136, p. 108 – 109: “The Hopi people appear to have been associated with northeastern Arizona for as long as the Anasazi tradition can be identified. Hopi ceramics of the Prehistoric period were virtually unique in that ceramic developments of the Protohistoric and Historic periods continued the regional trends… and displayed very few significant changes. Specializations within the group are evident, and there are distinctive variations in the basic theme. More than any other ceramic, Jeddito Black-on-yellow becomes the model from which the variations emerge.

 

Variations are quite numerous, depending on the level of investigation of stylistic diversity. Red paint polychrome – Sikyatki Polychrome, made between 1400 and 1625 – is thought by some to have been associated with the arrival of the kachina cult in the area.”

 

Also see Barbara Kramer, Nampeyo and her Pottery, 1996, p. 79: “Sikyatki.” This ware, which takes its name from the ruin on First Mesa which has yielded the most varied and beautiful specimens is characterized by a clear yellow surface with elaborate decorations in brown and red. The characteristic form is the shallow bowl, in the decoration of which highly conventionalized life forms predominate. This is a late pre-historic period…”

 

From a written letter by Francis H. Harlow that accompanies the jar: "On 15 July, 1989 I examined a beautiful, classic jar of Sikyatki Polychrome in the possession of James Reid of Santa Fe. The jar is circa 10 inches tall, has a bare neck that slopes strongly inward, a flared rim, and is decorated with a midbody design band. Broad path lines with prominent “ceremonial” breaks lie above and below the band of decoration. The jar has been broken and mended, with a few small pieces missing and no restoration. The vessel walls are thin, formed of hard, compact, orange-tan paste; the surfaces are unslipped. The black paint is thick and hard, almost sub-glaze in appearance, but not lustrous; it is only slightly eroded in a few places. The red paint is fairly thick and hard, its color a dark blood red. The appearance overall is much like some of the finest examples collected at Sikyatki by Fuchs. The style is like that of classic Sikyatki Polychrome made in the 1500’s (the first part of that century) or perhaps the latest 1400’s."