Storage Jar
CultureChokwe peoples
Date20th century
MediumFired clay
DimensionsOverall: 18 1/2 × 13 × 12 inches (46.99 × 33.02 × 30.48 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the George H. and Elizabeth O. Davis Fund
Object number90-7
On View
Not on viewCollections
Exhibition HistoryFired Brilliance: Ceramic Vessels from Zaire, The University of Missouri-Kansas City Gallery of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 11-March 16, 1990, no. 39.
This impressive, blackened and burnished storage jar, with its finely incised linear surface design, displays the artistic virtuosity of a skilled professional. Chokwe pottery is often made by men, whose skills can command high prices. Yet in areas where pottery clay is abundant, husbands and wives may work together in family workshops to produce bowls, jars and other functional items for sale at weekly markets in the surrounding area. The words buana ko kowa inscribed on the handles may identify the artist and village of manufacture.
With Marc Leo Félix (Tribal Arts SPRL), Brussels, Belgium, no. 39, by March 1990;
Purchased from Félix by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1990.
Fired Brilliance: Ceramic Vessels from Zaire, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: The University of Missouri-Kansas City Gallery of Art, 1990, unpaginated, (repro.).
Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, December 1990): 2, (repro.).
Joyce M. Youmans, “African Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” African Arts 33, no. 4 (Winter 2000), 49, 54, (repro.).
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