Water Transport Jar
1900s
- Medium
- Terracotta
- Classification
- Vessels
- Dimensions
- Diameter: 35.7 cm (14 1/16 in.); Overall: 36.9 cm (14 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Nupe-style pottery, unknown female potter
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, African Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
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.
