Artwork Page for Water Transport Jar

Details / Information for Water Transport Jar

Water Transport Jar

1900s

Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Nupe-style pottery, unknown female potter

Medium
Terracotta
Measurements
Diameter: 35.7 cm (14 1/16 in.); Overall: 36.9 cm (14 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund 1995.210
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
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Did You Know?

The shape of this vessel probably developed from real gourds used to hold liquids.

Description

The Nupe, an Islamic people from northern Nigeria, embellish pottery and metalwork with intricate, nonrepresentational patterning. A female potter built this vessel by joining two bowls into a globe shape, then adding the neck. After drying, she used shells to press in designs before burnishing the exterior to a high shine. Finally, she fired the gourd-shaped vessel in a furnace. The patterns beautify and allow a firm grip when lifting the vessel. As the Gwari and Nupe people are neighbors, pottery shapes and designs often transferred between them. Look for similar zigzags and concentric lines on the nearby Gwari-inspired vessels.
Brown terracotta jar with a dark-brown, bowl-shaped bottom, merging to three layers of red-brown thinning to a neck before it flared out into a smaller, squat bowl shape. The layers are patterned by horizontal lines running around the jug, with a zig-zag pattern around a strip on the lower jug, and rows of repeated vertical lines interspersed throughout the upper half.

Water Transport Jar

1900s

Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Nupe-style pottery, unknown female potter

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