Flask with face

ca. 1890

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 556

The grimacing face reveals the artist's gifts as a sculptor–his profession before becoming a ceramicist. Carriès made an important series of masks, inspired by Japanese Noh theater and the gargoyles and carved faces on Gothic church architecture. His stoneware flasks with faces are an offshoot of this production. The bearded face as a motif on a water jug has its origins in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century German stoneware vessels known as Beardman or Bellarmine jugs.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Flask with face
Maker: Jean-Joseph Carriès (French, Lyons 1855–1894 Paris)
Date: ca. 1890
Culture: French, Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye
Medium: Glazed stoneware
Dimensions: H. 15 1/2 in.; wt. confirmed: 9.5 lb. (39.4 cm, 4.3 kg)
Classification: Ceramics-Pottery
Credit Line: Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection, Purchase, Acquisitions Fund; Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; and 2011 Benefit Fund, 2013
Object Number: 2013.489
Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

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