**First Time At Auction**

Native American, Southwestern US, Mimbres Valley, New Mexico, ca. 1000 to 1250 CE. A particularly fine example of a black-on-white ceramic bowl with an elegant painted motif of steps, checks, and triangles around the interior of the rim. The rest of the interior is painted brilliantly white, while the exterior is grey. This is part of the Mimbres (and larger Mogollon) tradition of iron-based, mineral-painted, decorated pottery. Size: 8.3" W x 4.2" H (21.1 cm x 10.7 cm)

Fascinatingly, Mimbres geometric designs seem to have been inspired by Southwestern landscape imagery. For example, the stepped pyramid designs here might echo the jagged geologic formations on the desert. The Mimbres people occupied the mountain and river valleys of southwestern New Mexico; the name we know them by is from the Spanish word for the willows that grew alongside the river valleys. The artists responsible for creating pottery vessels like this were women, and many Mimbres women have been found in burials accompanied by pottery making tools.

Provenance: private Ventura County, California, USA collection

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#129405

Repaired and restored from approximately six pieces, with overpainting along the repair lines.