The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

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

Terracotta
Diameter: 35.7 cm (14 1/16 in.); Overall: 36.9 cm (14 1/2 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1995.210
Location: Not on view

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.
  • ?–1995
    Tambaran Gallery, New York, NY
    1995–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art by purchase
  • "Permanent Collection Installations.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 3 (2024): 16-17. Reproduced: p. 17; Mentioned: p. 16 archive.org
  • From the Earth through Her Hands: African Ceramics. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 21, 2024-September 21, 2025).
  • {{cite web|title=Water Transport Jar|url=false|author=|year=1900s|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1995.210