Brooklyn Museum: Collections: Arts of the Americas

Butterfly Design Water Jar. Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico. Zuni artist, 1825–50. Ceramic, pigment, 12 3/4 x 12 3/4 in. (32.4 x 32.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund, 03.325.4723

A woman probably made this delightful water jar, since all pottery was done by women during the nineteenth century. The jar was created in a traditional manner: clays dug locally from around Zuni Pueblo were hand-kneaded with old sherds worked into the clay as temper, coiled into shape, and smoothed; mineral paints and slips were applied, and then the vessel was fired within an open fire. Scholars refer to this full-bodied style as Kiapa Polychrome, a style between the earlier polychrome jars that have low bulges in their bodies and a later style that has a high shoulder bulge. The butterfly was one of several motifs favored by Zuni artists. Others were water symbols such as tadpoles and frogs, deer with a heart-line motif, and hunting animals. The early curator Stewart Culin collected this vessel from Andrew Vanderwagon, the owner of the Zuni trading post where Culin stayed when he was collecting in 1903. Today Zuni pottery is still made in the traditional manner, although some potters are men and some use an electric kiln to add consistency to the firing.

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