700 - Tall Vessel with Chased Face, Patinated, H. 22 cm

Tall Vessel with Chased Face, Patinated, H. 22 cm Sheet copper, chased and given a green patina, with appliques left bright. Tall cylindrical vessel on a flared foot ring, the wall passing at the top into a widely projecting mouth. The upper third is articulated by six strong encircling ribs, alternately patinated dark green and left bright copper-coloured, which sit above the face like a layered headdress. The front is chased out and added as a stylised face: a long, sharply projecting bridge of the nose, above it curved brows, on either side an almond-shaped copper leaf as an eye with a domed rivet as the pupil, beneath the nose a horizontally applied piece of copper as the mouth. A vertical seam at the back. The patina rubbed at the foot and mouth, where the copper is visible. Good condition, slightly rubbed. H. 22 cm The deliberate alternation of patinated and brightly polished zones is a design device. Vessels with a human face worked in relief stand in a widespread tradition in which the vessel itself is understood as a figure; such forms are found equally in pre-Columbian, African and East Asian metalwork and ceramics.