A polychrome jar decorated below the shoulder with a four-panel geometric design, and above the shoulder with a rainbow and geometric design made by Martina and Florentino Montoya of San Ildefonso
Martina and Florentino Montoya, San Ildefonso, A polychrome jar decorated below the shoulder with a four-panel geometric design, and above the shoulder with a rainbow and geometric design
Martina and Florentino Montoya
San Ildefonso
$ 7900
brsi4h297
A polychrome jar decorated below the shoulder with a four-panel geometric design, and above the shoulder with a rainbow and geometric design
12.5 in L by 12.5 in W by 11 in H
Condition: Very good for its age with some rubs and a chip




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Florentino Montoya
and Martina Vigil

San Ildefonso
A polychrome jar with a recurved opening, a melon body, and a painted geometric design on the inside and outside

Florentino Montoya (1858-1918) was a potter and a painter from San Ildefonso Pueblo. He usually collaborated with his wife, Martina Vigil (1856-1916), in making pottery. They were excellent potters and very well known for the time.

Recalling that she enjoyed watching them making pottery and learning how from them when she was young, Maria Martinez said, "Florentino, he was old, and he painted, oh, very good." They also taught their niece, Tonita Pena, how to paint.

In 1999, one of their pots sold at auction for $96,000 dollars, at the time setting a world record price for a Native American pot.

San Ildefonso Pueblo

Sacred Black Mesa at San Ildefonso Pueblo
Black Mesa at San Ildefonso Pueblo

San Ildefonso Pueblo is located about twenty miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, mostly on the eastern bank of the Rio Grande. Although their ancestry has been traced to prehistoric pueblos in the Mesa Verde area, their most recent ancestral home is in the area of Bandelier National Monument, the prehistoric village of Tsankawi in particular. Tsankawi abuts the reservation on its northwest side.

A mission church was built in 1617 and named for San Ildefonso. Hence the name. Before that the village was called Powhoge, "where the water cuts through" (in Tewa). Today's pueblo was established as long ago as the 1300s. When the Spanish arrived in 1540, they estimated the village population at about 2,000.

That mission was destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and when Don Diego de Vargas returned to reclaim the San Ildefonso area in 1694, he found virtually all the Tewa people on top of nearby Black Mesa. After an extended siege the two sides negotiated a treaty and the people returned to their villages. However, the next 250 years were not good for them. The Spanish swine flu pandemic of 1918 reduced the pueblo's population to about 90. Their population has grown to more than 600 now but the only economic activity available on the pueblo involves creating art in one form or another. The only other work is off-pueblo. San Ildefonso's population is small compared to neighboring Santa Clara Pueblo, but the pueblo maintains its own religious traditions and ceremonial feast days.

San Ildefonso is most known for being the home of the most famous Pueblo Indian potter, Maria Martinez. Many other excellent potters from this pueblo have produced quality pottery, too, among them: Blue Corn, Tonita and Juan Roybal, Dora Tse Pe and Rose Gonzales. Of course the descendants of Maria Martinez are still important pillars of San Ildefonso's pottery tradition. Maria's influence reached far and wide, so far and wide that even Juan Quezada of the Mata Ortiz pottery renaissance in Chihuahua, Mexico, came to San Ildefonso to learn from her.

Map showing the location of San Ildefonso Pueblo

For more info:
at Wikipedia
official website
Pueblos of the Rio Grande, by Daniel Gibson
Photo is in the public domain