Stunning Anasazi Ancient Mimbres Culture Bowl Famous Richard Ellison Collection

Description

A Large & Stunning Geometric Anasazi Ancient Mimbres Culture Bowl from the Famous Richard “Red” Ellison Collection. So outside of a museum setting this is about the most famous Mimbres collection in the United States. Richard “Red” Ellison 1910–1992 was a civil engineer for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, and later for the Chino copper mines near Silver City. Richard became an avocational archaeologist that began exploring the mysteries of the ancient Mimbres culture beginning in the the late 1920's. Throughout his life he pursued his passion of learning about the people who inhabited the regions of Southwestern New Mexico in earlier centuries. Certainly inspired by the reports and writings from the early archeological expeditions of Bandelier, Cushing, Fewkes, Morris, Cosgrove, Nesbitt and others, Ellison quickly became well known in the area. Like Rodeck, Ellison was fascinated by the ancient Mimbres and, with his wife Virginia, he excavated many Mimbres sites, accumulating a large private collection. The couple also owned Kwilleylekia, a major Salado (fourteenth century, post-Mimbres) site near Cliff, New Mexico. For a modest entrance fee, visitors could watch Red excavate the pueblo and visit his on-site museum. The sign at the gate advertised “Living Museum” and “All Tile Restrooms”; Kwilleylekia was on American Automobile Association maps of that time.
Through the years he met and worked with many of the renowned archeologists and scholars studying the region. His papers include correspondence and references to Gladwin, Haury, Hough, Kidder, Wheat, Jenks, Rodeck, MIlls, LeBlanc, and Lekson to name a few. He contributed a tremendous amount of knowledge verbally, but never formally published any of his work. He is referenced in many academic papers regarding the Mimbres and Salado over the years and pieces of his collection have been featured in various publications. He had worked with self-made archaeologist Harold Gladwin (the details of that connection are not clear). Gladwin, a major player in early Southwestern studies, regularly tilted with professors—his dismissive phrase for PhDs was “Phuddy-Duddy.” Red apparently felt much the same: Ellison was highly suspicious of professors. It was remarkable that Ellison allowed Prof. Hugo Rodeck to examine and photograph his collection in several visits from 1952 to 1960, in Silver City and in El Paso, Texas.
Let’s not kid ourselves, in the world of Anasazi and Mimbres collecting provenance is hard to come by, and excellent provenance is even harder to come by. This piece has excellent provenance and comes with a COA from the auction house where a large portion of the collection was recently sold. The bowl is in excellent condition with the huge main piece intact and one corner with around 2 large pieces and 6 small pieces reglued back together and all done back before the 1950’s. This piece is an absolute geometric masterpiece, the design is so well done it’s hard to believe sometimes that artisans here in the states were producing such stunning geometric artwork nearly a thousand years ago. I’ve also included a picture of it under the UV light and I’m not seeing anything lighting up other than the the glue on the edges of the reglued pieces and some tape remnants from when they had patched it together in the field when they originally found it as seen with many of their other pieces, otherwise I personally can’t spot anything else or any restoration or repaint. This is an amazing bowl with an even better provenance, when you buy a bowl like this you know your getting something that was not looted or taken off of public lands from protected sites, this was excavated nearly a century ago by someone who was passionate about understanding more about the ancient peoples that once dwelled in the amazing southwest. At a little over 12 inches in diameter and a little over 5 1/2 inches tall, this is a very large and truly stunning piece, not to mention there is a large portion of this bowl where the black pigmentation is still so vivid and deep it still looks like the day it was painted and the lines are so perfect and straight you would think it was done with a ruler 1000 years ago. I also provided pictures with flash and without so you can judge the amazing depth and warmth of color on the piece for yourself. This is the last piece from this provenanced collection I will be listing for a while if not forever as the other pieces for sale have now all sold, so get this last one before anyone else does, good luck.