Zuni Standing Bear Fetish Brothers of Picasso Marble

Some Zuni fetishes are just made to be gifted as a meaningful token. These hand carved bear brothers are in that category. Think of the delight a mother of two boys would feel when receiving these special figures as a gift, or think of gifting one fetish to each of two sons. What fun would that be!

Just like human brothers, these fetish bears have slight differences but overall very similar features like big bear paws and broad foreheads. Big brother bear is a little bit taller and even though they're both carved of picasso marble, the coloring of their "fur" is distinctive between each.

Significance: For Zuni people, fetishes represent the spirit of the animal carving. Bears are one of the most powerful fetish animals. They're guardians of the West, one of the six cardinal Zuni directions. Bear spirits provide strength, courage and healing.

We can receive the same gifts of strength, courage and healing from these bear brothers, or we can simply display them on a shelf and feel a little burst of joy every time we notice them.

Provenance:  The two brother bears are sold together as a pair. While they come without documentation as to their Zuni artist creator, they look similar to standing bears done by Sammy Smith, and they could be his work.

Even though there's no documentation on Beulah and Twila's  original carvers, there's some very interesting provenance information. They comes from the collection of a beautiful woman who grew up in Germany during World War II. Post war, she moved to the United States and became a model in New York City. She eventually married, left her modeling career, and moved to El Paso with her husband. In El Paso, she first experienced the charm of Native American art and jewelry. 

Many years later, she attended her first of several celebrated Native American art field trips hosted by Martha Struever. During this time, she expanded her collection of Native American art and jewelry. Her collection wasn't vast, but it was extremely meaningful to her.

After a long and full life, this dear woman recently passed away. She knew that her collection which she lovingly called her "treasures" was to be handled by Turquoise & Tufa, and she expressed her wishes that these dear fetishes would bring as much joy to us as they did to her. 

Dimensions: Older brother is 2" tall x 1/2" wide. Younger brother is 1 7/8" all x 1/2" wide.