Blue-painted Storage Jar
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Pottery Decoration
After a pottery vessel had dried to a leathery consistency, it was ready to be decorated and fired.
The simplest technique was to apply a layer of clay, paint, and water—called slip—on the pot’s drab exterior. Other methods included incising designs with pointed objects, polishing the surface with a cloth, or using a stone to burnish it, creating an attractive sheen.
Painted decorations appear on pottery throughout the Eighteenth Dynasty. Early designs included thin lines and long pendant triangles. Around the time of Thutmose III, artists invented a pastel blue paint that eventually dominated pottery decoration. A rare type of pot made exclusively for tombs was painted to reproduce the appearance of stones such as breccia.
After decorating the vessel, the potter placed it in a kiln for firing. Potters wrapped cords around large unfired vessels to prevent them from collapsing. These ropes burned away during firing, but traces of them remain on the sides of some pots.
Caption
Blue-painted Storage Jar, ca. 1332–1292 B.C.E.. Clay, pigment, 11 13/16 x Diam. 6 3/8 in. (30 x 16.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield, Theodora Wilbour, and Victor Wilbour honoring the wishes of their mother, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, as a memorial to their father Charles Edwin Wilbour, 16.580.129. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 16.580.129_PS22.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Gallery
Not on view
Title
Blue-painted Storage Jar
Date
ca. 1332–1292 B.C.E.
Dynasty
Dynasty 18
Period
New Kingdom
Geography
Place made: Egypt
Medium
Clay, pigment
Classification
Dimensions
11 13/16 x Diam. 6 3/8 in. (30 x 16.2 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield, Theodora Wilbour, and Victor Wilbour honoring the wishes of their mother, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, as a memorial to their father Charles Edwin Wilbour
Accession Number
16.580.129
Rights
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
Frequent Art Questions
Can these jars stand on surfaces or are they designed to be held somewhere?
These jars were indeed intended to sit on stands that also would have been made of terracotta. They could also be leaned against walls or nestled into the sand.Pot stands were an important feature of life in ancient Egypt! There is even a hieroglyph that looks like one.
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