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Large closed vessel
Maker: Hayes, Peter
Hand-built clay, slip coated, decorated with incised pattern, burnished and fired.
Large flask-like closed vessel with narrow elliptical base, rising with straight sides and flattened at the top to a wide horizontal-line shoulder. A small incision in the shoulder leads down to a circular opening from back to front, though the top of the vessel remains entirely sealed. Surface coated with red-brown slip incised with an abstract texture like wood that has begun to split with age. Burnished to a shiny finish which the firing process has shaded from mid to dark. Designed to stand upright.
History note: Bequeathed by Philomena Guillebaud, Cambridge, with Art Fund support
Bequeathed by Philomena Guillebaud, Cambridge, with Art Fund support
Depth: 12 cm
Height: 33.5 cm
Width: 31.5 cm
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2018-11-19) by Guillebaud, Philomena
20th Century, third quarter
Production date:
AD 1997
: marked
Peter Hayes (b. 1946) studied at Birmingham College of Art before working and travelling in Africa from 1972-82. He has international reputation for large scale ceramic forms placed in open landscape and in the built environment, from cruise liners to government buildings.
This is one of two red burnished forms in the collection, one large and the other the size of a hand-held flask, which draw on ceramics made by the Basotho people in Lesotho. Their polished red and orange pots are created with basic tools, decorated with finely ground red slip; the leather-hard surface is burnished with pebbles from the river bank before using cow dung for firing at 600o. Hayes has adapted this process, burnishing over textured surfaces, firing at around 1060o in a gas-fired kiln where the flame is allowed to lick around the pots, giving them their dark, red burnished appearance reminiscent of ageing wood.
Decoration
Hand-building
: Clay, hand-built, slip coated, incised, burnished and fired.
Firing (heating)
Accession number: C.17-2018
Primary reference Number: 225730
Entry form number: 1450
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "Large closed vessel" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/225730 Accessed: 2025-04-22 18:35:35
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/225730
|title=Large closed vessel
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-04-22 18:35:35|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa40/C_17_2018_1_201902_adn21_dc2.jpg"
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<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Large closed vessel</figcaption>
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