Antique Islamic Jug or 'Ghorraf' Tin-Glazed Earthenware ('Fassi Ware’)

An Antique Islamic Pottery Jug or 'Ghorraf'
Tin-Glazed Earthenware ('Fassi Ware')
Fez, Morocco, North Africa
19th Century (Circa 1870)
XIXe Siècle

Measures:- 26.5 cm high x 13 cm wide (maximum at belly) x 9.5 cm diameter (at the neck)

Buff earthenware pottery, glazed and decorated with a geometric pattern in polychrome cobalt blue, turquoise green and yellow, outlined with deep manganese-purple / black. A piece of a desirable size and of a shape known as a 'ghorraf' (carafe).

The shape almost identical to a vessel in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London on display in The Curtain Foundation Gallery (see Museum Number: 4231~1901). The pattern and colouring very similar to a jug or tankard also in the V&A’s collection (see Museum Number: 4237~1901)  on display in the same gallery.

Condition: No restoration. The condition is commensurate with age. In places the rim has worn through to the body.  There are a few frits. Areas to the handle and the body where the glaze has slightly failed in firing, as is customary with these ceramics. Two areas where a bubble in the clay has burst leaving a hollow or it perhaps it adhered to a neighbouring jug in the kiln. The largest of these measures about 4 cm by 2 cm and is on the belly near the front (see photographs). The imperfections are standard in authentic, characterful pieces of sought-after tin-glazed earthenware pottery of this type, from this era. It wouldn't be a genuine old piece without them.

Arts D'Orient et Orientalisme - Grand "Ghorraf " Du XIXe Siècle - De Fès, Maroc, 19e siècle. Céramique à décor géométrique et floral polychrome.