M. Vail Navajo Horsehair Pottery Pillow Vase with Carved Sunface & Turquoise View Watchlist >
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Lot # F801
System ID # 29484836
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M. Vail Navajo Horsehair Pottery Pillow Vase with Carved Sunface & Turquoise
A Navajo horsehair pottery vessel by M. Vail, built in a flattened pillow form with a soft triangular silhouette and a small squared opening at the top. The signature horsehair surface treatment covers the body — fine carbon lines fixed into the clay when strands of hair meet the heat of the post-firing pit, each smoky tracery unrepeatable. One face carries a deeply carved radial sunface medallion in a pinwheel of incised rays, centered on a stepped cross motif set with a single turquoise cabochon.
Horsehair pottery is a contemporary outgrowth of traditional pit-firing, developed and popularized among Pueblo potters in the twentieth century. Hair laid onto the vessel at the moment it emerges from the kiln smolders on contact, burning carbon trails into the surface that can never be precisely repeated. The reverse of this piece carries the organic, free-ranging carbon webbing typical of the technique, while the decorated face integrates the horsehair ground with the geometric precision of the carved sunface — an unusual pairing of spontaneous and deliberate mark-making on the same vessel. Signed M. Vail and marked Navajo on the underside.
CONDITION
Good. No remarkable damage noted. Light shelf wear consistent with display use. Turquoise cabochon is securely set and the carved sunface medallion retains crisp definition throughout.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Overall: 6 1/2" H × 6 1/4" W × 2" D
- Weight: 15 oz
- Signed: M. Vail; marked Navajo (underside)
- Campbell's Soup Can (4" H) Shown for Scale — Not Included
