San Ildefonso Pueblo Blackware Plate By Maria Popovi

Mid 20th Century

1.25" H x 6.625" D

Hand Coiled Black on Black with a Glossy and Matte Finish in a Feather Motif Geometric Design

In Very Good Condition

San Ildefonso Pueblo blackware (black-on-black) plates co-signed by Maria Martinez and her son Popovi Da are highly collectible examples of mid-20th-century Pueblo pottery. Maria Martinez (1887–1980, also known as Maria Poveka or Marie), of San Ildefonso Pueblo (near Santa Fe, New Mexico), is one of the most famous Native American potters. With her husband Julian Martinez, she refined and popularized the black-on-black technique in the early 1900s (around 1919–1920). This involves hand-coiling clay, polishing a slip surface to a high shine, painting matte designs with the same clay slip, and reduction-firing (smothering the fire to deprive oxygen) so the pottery turns deep black with contrasting glossy and matte areas.