Face Vessel
date: label: date made
content: ca 1967
name: label: maker
content: Meaders, Cheever
notes: label: Description
content: The tradition of shaping human likenesses on ceramic vessels is thousands of years old. Face vessels held different meanings in different cultures around the world. Some were probably used in burial rituals, others satirized the person whose features were captured in clay, and still others were made just for fun.
label: Description
content: The earliest face vessels known to have been produced by white southern potters were probably not made until the end of the 1800s. White potters working in the Edgefield area in the mid-1800s may have seen the slave-made vessels and taken the idea with them as they moved out of South Carolina.
label: Description
content: This jug, on the right, was made by Georgia potter Cheever Meaders (1887-1967) who produced a small number of face vessels. Although they were popular, Meaders felt that they were too much trouble to make. Meaders used pieces of broken, glazed plates for the eyes and teeth on this piece.
label: Description
content: Starting in the 1960s, a growing interest in southern face vessels as examples of 20th-century folk art prompted collectors, historians, and cultural institutions to seek out and encourage the potters who produce them. This piece was donated to the Smithsonian by Ralph Rinzler and his wife. Working for the Smithsonian's Office of Folklife Programs, Rinzler was instrumental in the rediscovery and popularization of face vessels.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Georgia, White county
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
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content: Face Vessels
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content: Cultures & Communities
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Ralph and Kathryn Rinzler
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1981.0287.7
label: accession number
content: 1981.0287
label: catalog number
content: 1981.0287.07
objectType: label: Object Name
content: vessel, face
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, stoneware, coarse (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 1/4 in x 6 15/16 in; 20.955 cm x 17.62125 cm