Made for hard everyday use and never meant to be kept, few black clay jars from 19th-century Spain have survived in one piece. Found in Montpellier but made in Spain in the 19th century, this round-bellied jar stands on a narrow foot under a wide collared neck, with a loop handle on each shoulder and a surface left raw, grey-black, and pitted with age. The colour was never painted on: these pots were fired in a smoky, low-oxygen kiln that turned the clay dark from the inside out, and jars like this one held the everyday water, oil, and grain of a country house. Sylvie stands it on its own on a console, where its dark, worn surface can be seen up close.
