Face Jug
Artist unknown
c. 1860
Medium
Stoneware and alkaline glaze
Dimensions
H.: 13.3 cm (5 1/4 in.)
Classification
vessel
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
186659
Rights
Public Domain
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 su...