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A rare Hopi “San Bernardo/Payupki-Revival” Polacca Polychrome Period Jar by Nampeyo, c. 1880’s
This is, quite simply, a great and unique historic piece by the greatest, most accomplished Hopi potter of the modern era.
The type description above sounds a bit complicated, but the explanation is actually fairly straightforward. In addition to Nampeyo’s “revival” of the ancient Hopi pottery form of Sikyatki Polychrome (1375-1625 A.D.) in the latter decades of the 19th Century for which she is well known, she was also interested in and did her own more modern-day versions and interpretations of several other earlier forms of Hopi and related pottery types of which this particular piece is one of
the most unique.
Two of the most interesting and rarest forms of historic Hopi pottery types are “San Bernardo Polychrome” (1625-1740 A.D.) and “Payupki Polychrome” a concurrent and also quite short-lived, (1680-1780 A.D.) and even more rare variety made
in the now-ruined Rio Grande Valley refugee village of Payupki on the Hopi Second Mesa. Good examples of both of these pottery types are incredibly scare in the marketplace today. We have only had two San Bernardo pieces and two Payupki Polychrome pieces in 35-plus years of enthusiastically buying, selling and collecting historic Hopi pottery.
Above left, a Hopi San Bernardo Polychrome four-color pottery jar with "Eagle Tail" design, c. 1680-1700 A.D. Above right, a Payupki Polychrome pottery jar, c. 1700-1720. Below center, a later "Sikyatki-Revival" version of the "Eagle Tail" design by Nampeyo, c. 1905.
Below center photo by Addison Doty, Santa Fe
“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
"Nampeyo makes her designs after some she has seen on ancient ware."
-Hopi Ethnologist Alexander M. Stephen, 1893
The jar has an asymmetrical, yet interestingly and creatively symmetrical three-part design layout, a Nampeyo design innovation. The basic design form Nampeyo adapted this from is the four-part symmetrically-opposed stylized “Eagletail”
as seen in both the San Bernardo Polychrome jar above and in the large Nampeyo “Eagletail” jar also above. The jar measures an impressive 11” in diameter and it is 7 1/4” in height. It is in generally excellent original condition overall.
A thorough examination of the vessel under Ultraviolet light reveals no evidence of restoration or overpainting. As seen
in the photos, there are a number of small nicks and scrapes around the jar’s shoulder and there is an area of exfoliation on the inside of the rim and a chip or two which could all be very easily and inexpensively restored by a professional pottery restorer, if ever desired. The jar, as befitting the completely handmade object it is, also has a slight “lean” to it when viewed from certain angles.
In our view, this is all exactly as it should be and our strong recommendation for what its worth would be to leave this jar completely alone and admire and enjoy it exactly "as is” for the superbly authentic and perfectly ethnographic condition it is in, which considering its 140 or so years of age and the primitive living conditions under which it spent at least the first few of those fourteen decades, is quite remarkable.
This jar is a rare, unique and particularly powerful example of a brilliant Native artist’s distinctive
and highly accomplished work; a prize piece for any collection anywhere in the world.
Price $9,450
San Bernardo type polychrome pottery was primarily made as the next historic pottery development in the now-ruined Hopi First Mesa villages of Sikyatki and Awatovi while the Payupki village on the Hopi Second Mesa, also now a ruin today, was established by various New Mexico Rio Grande Pueblo Indian refugees fleeing from the bloody conflict of the Great Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in New Mexico. The Hopis who had suffered greatly themselves during the Revolt, welcomed these New Mexican Pueblo refugees and gave them a place to build a village.
This rare pottery type was an amalgamation of various early Rio Grande Keresan Pueblo pottery types, most notably Puname, San Pablo and Ranchitos Polychromes from Zia and Santa Ana Pueblos combined with contemporaneous Hopi types such as San Bernardo Polychrome all made using Hopi clay fired with dung. Payupki Polychrome pottery is primarily orange ware made with a rich orange clay fired with dung which is a most dramatic form and which this jar is Nampeyo’s version and personal, artistic interpretation of. The vessel's distinctive shape with its pronounced mid-body bulging shoulder and sharp upward and downward flexures and smaller base is decidedly San Bernardo/Payupki in its inspiration.
It is a bit difficult to see against the dark orange background clay color, but this jar is clearly a polychrome piece with
the painted design having been done with both black and red paints on the deep orange ground. This rare and lovely
San Bernardo/Payupki-Revival vessel should be properly classified in the strictly academic sense as being a “Polacca Polychrome” due to its late 19th Century time period of manufacture and its somewhat crackled or crazed slip and flattish shaped bottom both indicative of the late Polacca Polychrome Period at Hopi even though stylistically the jar is decidedly an artistic “Revival" of the two earlier pottery types.
Above left, "Mrs. Nampeyo, an acknowledged best Hopi indian woman Pottery maker 1st Mesa Hopiland, Ariz. Sichomovi."
R. Raffius, 1905 photo source and © Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California
Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside
