Vessel for Serving Beer (Ukhamba)

Arts of Africa

Mid–20th century

Zulu
Hlabisa region, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Eastern and Southern Africa

Among the Zulu, pottery is a specialized art form that is practiced by skilled women who make wares for family use and for sale. While many of the same forms of pottery—including the round-bodied and lipless beer-serving vessel—can be found across Zululand, there are distinctive regional styles of decoration. Potters in the Hlabisa region use a comb to inscribe thin, closely spaced lines into the wet clay. On this pot these form a textured panel of delicate ridges around the body that is intersected by a smooth zigzag band at the shoulders.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Northern Nguni
Title: Vessel for Serving Beer (Ukhamba)
Place: South Africa (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1925–1975
Medium: Blackened terracotta
Dimensions: 24.1 × 29.2 × 19 cm (9 1/2 × 11 1/2 × 7 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Keith Achepohl
Reference Number: 2005.261

Kathleen Bickford Berzock, For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection (The Art Institute and Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 189-191.

Art Institute of Chicago, For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection, Dec. 3, 2005–Feb. 20, 2006, cat. 125.

Art Gallery Grusenmeyer, Brussels, Belgium, by 1992; sold to Douglas Dawson Gallery, Chicago, Ill., 1992; sold to Keith Achepohl, Iowa City, Iowa, probably 1995; given to the Art Institute, 2006.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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