Head-vase

Place CreatedTunisia, Africa

CultureRoman

PeriodImperial

Date3rd Century CE

MediumCeramic

Credit LineMonique Brouillet Seefried Fund

Dimensions9 9/16 x 2 3/16 in. (24.3 x 5.6 cm)

Object number1996.010.002

Label TextAfrica Proconsularis, the province of the Roman Empire comprising what is today the northern parts of Tunisia, Algeria, and western Libya, was a source of immense wealth for Roman aristocrats whose provincial estates provided Rome with grain and olive oil. As early as the first century AD, potters in Tunisia began to exploit the fine red clay available locally to make ceramics that were inspired by wares produced in Italy. By the third century AD, African Red Slip Ware, as it known today, was being produced in very large quantities. Much of it was exported, as a subsidiary commodity traveling with the agricultural crops harvested in "the granary of the empire". One of the more prominent potters was Navigius, who signed a number of vessels, among them this jug: ex officina navig[ii] (from the workshop of Navigius).

The vase, which is mold-made in two parts (back and front), takes the form of the head of a youthful satyr, as shown by his equine ears. The grotesque, exaggerated rendering of eyes and the tufts of hair on the chin are characteristic traits for the male, but only partly human, companions of Dionysos or Bacchus. The conceit of rendering jugs and mugs in anthropoid form, inspired by metalwork, is the ancestor of modern "toby jugs".
Exhibition HistoryFragments of the Roman Past: North African Red Slip Ware from the William Knight Zewadski Collection, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 19 - May 29, 1994
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, August 1995 - May 2004
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2004 - August 26, 2013
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, September 25, 2013 - September 30, 2014
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, November 17, 2014 - March 14, 2023
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 2, 2023 - Present
Published ReferencesHarlan J. Berk, Ltd., Ancient Art (1987), number 60.
Harlan J. Berk, Ltd., Ancient Art (1992), number 83.
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 62.

ProvenanceLondon art market. With Harlan J. Berk, Ltd., Chicago, Illinois, from at least 1987. Ex coll. William Knight Zewadski, United States, purchased from Berk, 1993. Purchased by MCCM from Zewadski.

Status

On view

Collections