Jar with Double Spout

Label

In a Pueblo wedding ceremony, each spouse takes turns drinking sacred water from a vase, like the large black one seen here. The dual spouts are connected by a central handle, representing the joining of two individuals and their lifelong dedication to one another. The shape of the smaller vase was likely based on the wedding jar form, but the deer and floral motif suggests that it was made to be sold to white consumers.

Drinking rituals are shared across different cultures, whether in religious ceremonies or in sipping a daily cup of tea. The vessels in this case all hold special importance for the people who owned and used them.

From the 2023 exhibition Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Exhibition History

Gene Y. Kim, Class of 1985, Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-August 13, 2000.

Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 29, 2023-June 16, 2024.

Provenance

Frances E. Lester Company, Mesilla Park, Acoma, New Mexico; collected by Glover Street Hastings III, West Newton, Massachusetts and Bridgeton, Maine, 1920's-1930's; bequeathed to his daughter, Carlena Hastings Redfield (1888-1981), 1949; bequeathed to present collection [under the terms of her father's will], 1981.

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