Rare and Important Edgefield Face Jug

(Edgefield, South Carolina, circa 1860s) likely made at the Thomas Davies Manufactory, attributed to an unknown African American maker, thick dark olive green and black runny alkaline glaze, applied facial features to flattened side of jug including inset pierced white kaolin eyes, carved inset white kaolin teeth, eyebrows and pronounced eyelids, curved pinched nose, exaggerated lips, scroll form ears with rounded tragus, tapered neck with thick tooled rim, small strap handle, 4-1/2 in.Provenance: The Collection of Carl and Marian MullisNote:

Consensus by experts in the field point to the manufacture of these face vessels as being strongly related to the arrival of Africans from the Kongo societies of Central West Africa aboard the illegal slave ship Wanderer after 1858. This American Face Vessel is believed to be a relative of the the ritualistic African Kongolese Vessel called Nkisi. This face jug was featured in the Chipstone Foundations, "Face Jugs, African American Art And Ritual In 19th Century South Carolina". The exhibit originated at the Milwaukee Museum of Art then traveled to the Birmingham Museum of Art, Columbia Museum of Art, and Georgia Museum of Art where it has been on extended loan from 2011 until 2021. A catalog from the exhibition featuring a picture of this face jug with related article accompanies the lot. This face jug was originally purchased from Rob Hicklin, The Charleston Renaissance Gallery, out of the Levon C. Register Sr. Collection, Franklin Springs, Georgia.
Condition Report: glaze voids and anomalies as made, makers fingerprint marks on base edge from dipping in glaze, small glaze frit to top of left ear, firing separations behind ears as made, firing shrinkage lines in eyes as made with firing anomaly to corner of right eye, professionally restored handle, otherwise good conditionÿ