Fortune Justice
Face Jug
c. 1870-1880
Physical Qualities
Stoneware, kaolin, 10 3/8 x 7 5/8 x 8 in. (26.4 x 19.4 x 20.3 cm)
Credit Line
Decorative Arts Acquisitions Endowment established by the Friends of the American Wing
Object Number
2023.80
This carefully modeled face jug with white, movable eyes and teeth
was probably made by Fortune Justice, a Black ceramicist working
in the Edgefield Pottery District of South Carolina. Trained while
enslaved and a prolific artist when freed, Justice is one of only a
handful of potters with surviving work from this region, which
was home to over four hundred ceramicists of African descent in
the mid–1800s. Face jugs were made by Black potters for the Black
community. During enslavement, owning personal possessions like
these humanized ceramics was an act of resistance.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2023; Crocker Farm, Inc. at auction, Spring 2023, lot 5; Larry Kahmeyer, Iuka, Kansas by purchase, 2022; Shawnee Antique Mall, Shawnee, Kansas
On View: American Wing Second Floor, Scott 01
