Bambara Terra Cotta Wedding Vessel

Twenty-three inches of terra cotta and a name that promises a good deal.

It is called a wedding vessel. Bambara potters in Mali made it in the 18th or 19th century, in a tradition where pottery was the work of women and finely decorated jars held water or grain in the household. The ovoid body rises to a wide, slightly flared neck ringed with fine incised lines. Around the shoulder runs a band of incised zigzags and stippling, above several raised ridges. The burnished reddish-brown surface gives way to grays and smoky blacks lower down, ending in a small foot ring.

It holds a room with ease.