Water Transport Jar (1900s): Art, History and Details

Water Transport Jar (1900s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: Water Transport Jar
• Date: 1900s
• Culture: Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Nupe-style pottery, unknown female potter
• Type: Vessels
• Technique: Terracotta
• Dimensions: Diameter: 35.7 cm (14 1/16 in.); Overall: 36.9 cm (14 1/2 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1995.210

A detail from the museum

The shape of this vessel probably developed from real gourds used to hold liquids.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Permanent Collection Installations.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 3 (2024): 16-17.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.