WOW!  This is a spectacular tall jar by Dolores Curran.  Before she began making her carved pieces, she was well known for her delicately painted buff-on-red pottery.  The jar is a large piece of her pottery and is highly polished red and painted with buff clay for the design.  Amazingly, she would paint each piece up to five times to get the color of the matte-painted areas deep and consistent enough!  This jar has a storage jar shape with tall sides and a short neck.  Around the neck are clouds, and an avanyu.  Along the shoulder of the jar there are two panels with quail and corn.  The two panels are each different.  They are separated by tightly painted feathers.  Below is a row of feather, raindrop and cloud patterns.  Note how TINY the lines are and how tightly they are painted!  Near the base are wave and cloud designs.  The size makes it dramatic and the precision of the painting is visually striking! Not only does it take multiple layers of clay to paint the designs, but all the design work must be done before firing.  Over the years, Dolores mostly made painted miniatures due to the time-consuming nature of the painting. The jar is signed, “Dolores Curran”.  It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration or repair.