Kalanga Terra Cotta Figurative Vessel

The vessel has a body. It stands with its hands on its hips.

Across Nigeria, potters have long combined the useful and the sculptural, shaping vessels into human form for shrines and ceremony as well as the home. This terra cotta example, 20th century, seventeen inches tall, has a head crowned with small knobbed projections around an open rim. The face is long and narrow, with a ridged nose, incised eyes, ears set high. Looping arms rest on the hips, and the chest is studded with rows of raised dots flanking a long applied loop. A flared cylindrical foot, in earthy brown clay.

A jar with posture.