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.
Date
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IIIF Manifest
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Charles G. Zug, III, The Traditional Pottery of North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press, 1981).
John A. Burrison, Brothers in Clay (University of Georgia Press, 1983).
Charles G. Zug, III, Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina (University of North Carolina, 1986).
Cinda K. Baldwin, Great and Noble Jar: Traditional Stoneware of South Carolina, (McKissick Museum/University of South Carolina Press, 1993).
Nancy Sweezy, Raised in Clay: The Southern Pottery Tradition (University of North Carolina Press, 1994).
Annual Report (Art Institute of Chicago, 2005–2006), 22 (ill. p. 29).
Frances McQueeney–Jones Mascolo, “For Kith and Kin: The Folk Art Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago,” Antiques and The Arts Weekly, August 3, 2012, 1, 30–1 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter and Monica Obniski, For Kith and Kin: The Folk Art Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2012) no. 31.
With Diana and Gary Stradling, New York, NY, c. 1960 to 2006; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2006.
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