MUSEUM QUALITY. WHAT IS IT?

Normally, we think that something in a Museum should  be so rare and exquisite that it's beyond the reach of normal people. When we see an object in a Museum, it seems to say “I’m in a Museum and you can’t have anything like me.”

     However, in our world of Southwestern Pottery, that’s not always true. Fine examples are relatively easy to come by, and they're the ones that end up in Museums.

      These three pots are late nineteenth-century Zia ollas, all about the same size.

      The one on the left is featured in a major 2023 book devoted to the Weisel Family Collection at San Francisco's De Young Museum.  

         The one in the middle sold for $4,800 at a Santa Fe auction in 2020.

      The one on the right is sitting in my bedroom. I bought it for considerably less at a time when prices were higher.

Either of the two on the right could replace the one in the Museum without an expert raising an eyebrow. They're all “Museum Quality” simply because they're good pieces of an important type.

     This explanation might not satisfy a pompous Museum curator, but that's how I see it.