Native American Pottery: How to Identify and Price Cochiti and Tesuque Pueblo Figurines (Part 2)

Learn about early Native American Cochiti and Tesuque figurine pottery, including figurine types, pricing and history of Cochiti and Tesuque pottery. Dr. Mark Sublette owner of Medicine Man Gallery with 25 years experience gives you tips on what to look for when collecting Cochiti and Tesuque indian pottery figurines.

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Native American Pottery - How to identify and price Cochiti and Tesuque Pueblo figurines (Part 2)

Hi, I'm talking about Cochiti Pueblo pottery. In my earlier video, I discussed the Native American pots like these – the Ollas and the smaller jars and canteens, but really what I'd like to focus on today are the figurines. This is really the tradition at Cochiti Pueblo. In fact, when Stephenson came and investigated the pottery making at the Pueblo in 1879, he discovered that the majority of the pots that were being made were these figurine type pots.

Now the figurines – the earliest ones are what we call the opera singers, and as you can see in this image, they have very large open mouths or are tall. This particular Cochiti specimen is 18 inches in height, and these big opera singers can bring as much as $25,000 on the open market. They're very rare and they were broken off.

Generally, what you would see in the early pottery at Cochiti in the figurines would be things like this, which might be a bear or a dog even. You have things like this, which is a duck, and you'll see that it has different design elements involved, and again you see the black dots that are on this. Lots of design elements is very typical of the Cochiti, and this would be a figurine.

Now, you also found at the same time in Tesuque that they were making figurines as well. Jay Gold, who owned a store in Santa Fe, would sell not only Cochiti figurines, but also the Tesuque. This is the typical Tesuque rain god – dates from about 1880s, and these things were made anywhere from the 1880s all the way to the 1960s. The earliest ones are just like this – plain, then they started adding paint, and then even poster paints as they got onto the 60s. This is actually a Tesuque figurine as well. It's a little more ornate; it's a little different in composition; it's a little hard I will say even for the experts to determine things like this from the Tesuque and Cochiti. The good news is from a price structure probably doesn't really matter.

Now starting in 1964, Helen Cordero started making these, which are the Native American storytellers. Helen began to pot; she tried to make regular pots like this, but really found that she didn't have much aptitude for it, so she made a storyteller. This is actually a man, and all her storytellers are men. This is one (which dates from about the 70s), but the first one done in 1964 was such a hit that the great folk art collector Alexandra Girard said, “you know, you should do more of these and add kids,” and so she did.

In fact, Girard collected many of these early ones, and then her thing kind of took off. Not only did it take off for her, but it also took off for other pueblo potters in Cochiti, as well as surrounding areas and other places too. This is an opera singer, but it's actually a remake of one that was done in about the 1980s and 90s.

Now for Helen’s work, these storytellers – the value comes in with the kids; the more kids the more valuable they'll be. You'll also see storytellers that were really drummers. The drummer was probably done for her husband Fred, who was a drum maker at Cochiti, and it was in his honor.

The most valuable of these Pueblo dolls are the ones that are anywhere from the earliest ones, which were made in the 60s 70s and 80s. The ones in the 90s got a little bit slip change and she was getting older. She died in 1994. In fact, when she died she used to charge a thousand dollars per storyteller.

A storyteller like this today might run seven to eight thousand, and they can run up to twelve to fifteen thousand, depending on how many kids they have. The tradition is a longtime tradition – it's still being done today. There's lots of living artists that are making them. One of the most famous as Virgil Ortiz, who had numerous museum exhibits just on his Cochiti figurines, and they're in lots of collections throughout the world. So, if you enjoy Cochiti figurines, think of Helen Cordero, and also think of the opera singers.