"Tonala has made pottery its most characteristic sign . At the end of the 19th Century, the priest Jaime Anestagasti referred to this village in his Brevisimas notas de la historia antigua y moderna de Tonalá as the "port for earthenware", to which muleteers from faraway places would come for supplies of ceramics. This eloquent statement indicates the great demand there was for Tonaltecan ceramic ware during the 19th Century. However, this earthenware has been held in high esteem for a very long time, as travellers and historians since the 17th Century have testified.
Both the artisans and the specialists in Tonalá pottery make the distinction between "earthenware of water" and "earthenware of fire" on account of both its function and its decoration. These are easily distinguishable by their finish. the former is made of burnished or greased clay, which is fired once, and the latter is bathed in greta, or glazed, and fired twice."(1)
"In the giant polished basins of the 18th and 19th Century, decorated in ochres, sepias, blues and black on a cream-colored background, the same pattern is repeated frequently: an animal (a pig or a lion) surrounded by stylized flowers and leaves liberally spread across the surface of the pots, bracketed above and below by a horizontal border, often with a personalized inscription. Frequently, the drawing is restricted to one side of the piece, centered between two diminutive handles, suggesting that the pieces were conceived in order to be set on a stand." (2)

"The seductive powers of Tonalá pottery live in a unique complicity with our senses. On account of its immediacy, sight is the privileged sense. The silhouettes of the original forms, of the colors and of the drawings may be seen from afar. The marked and yet ambigous naiveté of the pieces gives them an air of simplicity, freshness and sincerety; in short, it makes them strikingly graceful and natural." (3)

Although typical of Tonalá production, there are few known examples of vases with two disticnt background colors such as this lot. According to Maria Concepcion Garcia Saiz, in general the cream colored background would be considered to be the fron of the piece. There are four examples of these vases in the collection of the Museo de America in Madrid, two in Turin and one other has been found in Rome. (4)

(1) G. Acevedes Piña, The Plurality of Tonalá, Artes de Mexico, No. 14, 1991, p. 85.
(2) K. Cordero Reiman, The Roberto Montenegro Collection, Artes de Mexico, No. 14, 1991, p. 87
(3)A. Ruy Sanchez Lacy, Ceramics and the Five Senses, Artes de Mexico, No. 14, 1991, p. 82
(4)M.C. Garcia Saiz, La Ceramica de Tonalá en la Colecciones Europeas - La Coleccion del Museo de America, Analisis Formal, in Tonalá. Sol de Barro, Banco Cremi, Mexico, 1991, p. 91