WOW!  This is an exceptional large carved jar by Virginia Ebelacker.  She was the first daughter of noted potter Margaret Tafoya.  She was known for large-sized pottery as well as her deeply carved designs.  This jar has a high, round shoulder and a short neck.  The piece is fully carved around the top of the shoulder of the jar with an avanyu.  It is deeply and precisely cut into the clay. The jar is highly polished and fired a glassy black.  It is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, restoration, or repair. It is signed on the bottom in the clay, ‘Virginia Ebelacker”. The jar has a fantastic provenance letter that accompanies it.  Below is an expert from that letter.  What an amazing piece of history to own!

My father (Walt Meyers) was a part of the Manhattan Project.  During the decades that followed World War II, my father stayed on in Los Alamos, where he and my mom had six children.  In 1982, my father’s work was declassified.  During his time at Los Alamos National Laboratories, he had a co-worker named Virginia Ebelacker. Dad was Virginia’s boss, but he spoke of her with great respect for her work as a metallurgist and her oversight of a small team of metallurgists.  Virginia thought so highly of my father that she crafted one of her large signature pots just for him and brought it to him to work one day, giving it to him as a gift. It has graced our home in Los Alamos for decades and we are now grateful the pot can now be added to a new collection.

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