During 1899-1912, Josephine Foard worked with Puebloan potters in the American southwest, attempting to tailor their wares for Victorian tastes. Foard encouraged non-indigenous shapes, like this Jardinière planter style. She also developed a method of glazing pot interiors with lead, making them watertight and more saleable to tourist markets.

I like this pot because it’s a great example of how current research adds to our knowledge about objects. Recently, I found a collection of misidentified lead glazed Puebloan pots in SMM’s permanent collections. Most Puebloan pots are unglazed, so these unusual pieces caught my interest.

Labels on five of the pots indicated J. Foard sold them. A quick search led me to Dwight Lanmon, a specialist on Josephine Foard. As a result, Lanmon is featuring SMM’s collection of 14 pots (the largest Foard collection known to date) in his forthcoming book.
-Tilly Laskey, Curator of Ethnology