Stoneware Face Jug

Stoneware Face Jug, attributed to Bath, (Aiken County), South Carolina, area, second half 19th century, alkaline glazed jug with modeled features, with applied white kaolin eyes pierced at the center, and teeth, ht. 4 1/2 in. Provenance: Family descent of a Connecticut antiquarian who collected antiques in the late 19th/early 20th century. The base of the vessel is inscribed "Aiken S.C." and with his inventory number "468." A late19th/early 20th century note inscribed by him and retrieved from the interior of the vessel is inscribed "Monkey Jug= made at Bath S.C. 1862 by negro slaves/Aiken S.C." Literature: The topic of slave-made face jugs is discussed in two articles in Ceramics in America, Chipstone Foundation, 2006. In the article titled "Fluid Vessel: Journey of the Jug," by John A. Burrison, pp. 93-121, the history of pottery jug-making in America and the early Southern face vessels made by enslaved African-American potters, in particular the jugs made at Colonel Thomas Davies Palmetto Fire Brick Works at Bath in west-central South Carolina. Burrison states the jugs are "Distinguished by bulging eyes and bared teeth of kaolin inset into the stoneware clay body..." and proposes the probable influence of anthropomorphic clay vessels made in West Africa (the chief source of the Atlantic slave trade) had on the Afro-Carolinian slaves. In a related article titled "Making Faces: Archaeological Evidence of African-American Face Jug Production," by Mark M. Newell Read more…