Mimbres Bichrome Bowl w/ Geometric Motif

Native American, Mogollon, Mimbres. A hemispherical earthenware bowl raised by hand from buff clay, its interior slipped in cream white and painted in iron-red with a broad encircling band. The design divides into panels of hatched parallel strokes, stepped frets, and a rectilinear scroll enclosing a reserved square, the negative white ground carrying as much of the composition as the pigment does. The exterior is left unslipped, fire-clouded gray and tan from an open firing. Bowls of this form served domestic purposes during life and were frequently placed with the dead, inverted over the face of the deceased. The geometric vocabulary here belongs to the Mimbres Boldface (Style I to II) tradition, in which layout and interval govern the eye rather than figural imagery. Mimbres potters of the Mogollon highlands of southwestern New Mexico produced, over roughly three centuries, one of the most disciplined painted ceramic traditions in North America. The earlier bichrome and boldface wares favor bold red geometry on a white slip: hatchure, stepped terraces, scrolls, and interlocking frets whose rhythm derives from basketry and textile layouts. Only later, in the Classic Black-on-white phase, do the celebrated figural scenes of rabbits, fish, bats, and composite beings appear. The tradition is also known for the ritual perforation of mortuary vessels, a small hole punched through the base at the time of interment and commonly described as "killing" the bowl to release its animating essence. The practice is well attested archaeologically in the Mimbres Valley, though not every excavated bowl received one. Item # 204499

Estimate:$600

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