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Face Jug

Small, dark colored ceramic vessel with a handle and spout at the top. The front of the vessel looks like a face, with two round forms making the eyes, a long, thin form a nose, and an oval form the mouth. Two ear-like shapes protude from the side of the vessel.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Small, dark colored ceramic vessel with a handle and spout at the top. The front of the vessel looks like a face, with two round forms making the eyes, a long, thin form a nose, and an oval form the mouth. Two ear-like shapes protude from the side of the vessel.

Date:

c. 1860

Artist:

Artist unknown (American, 19th century)
Edgefield District, South Carolina

About this artwork

This vessel is similar to the earliest known face jugs made in South Carolina and Georgia in the second half of the 1800s. Beginning in 1858 a number of enslaved people from the Kongo region of central Africa were trained as potters in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. They produced utilitarian wares as well as their own pottery. Jugs such as this one are thought to have been used for ritual or religious purposes as they are too small to hold enough water for a field hand. A number of such jugs have been found along routes of the Underground Railroad, suggesting they were valuable enough to be carried as their owners attempted to escape slavery.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

Artist unknown

Title

Face Jug

Place

Edgefield county (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.

c. 1860

Medium

Stoneware and alkaline glaze

Dimensions

H.: 13.3 cm (5 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Juli and David Grainger Fund

Reference Number

2006.84

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/186659/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

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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