Rare Spanish Water Vessel

In the heat of a Catalan summer, this was how you kept water cold. A 19th-century Spanish water vessel from Catalonia, raw unglazed terracotta, angular at the shoulder and drawn in at the waist, with a single handle and a narrow neck to pour from. The magic is in the clay itself, left unglazed so that a little water seeps through and evaporates in the dry air, drawing out the heat and keeping what is inside cool, a bit of everyday alchemy from long before iceboxes. Sylvie stands it on a table as a piece of sculpture, or lets a few tall stems lean out of its narrow neck.