Terracotta Vessel with an Elephant on a Globe

The Balancing Elephant

There is something joyful about this piece. The heaviest of animals is shown in a moment of perfect balance, poised on top of a ball as lightly as a performer.

The elephant is admired in many traditions for its strength, its memory and its long life, and in several African cultures it is linked with chiefs and leadership. Here, though, it is not stern. The round eyes, the small curved tusks and the trunk lifted forward give it an almost playful character.

The maker has used colour sparingly but well. Red fills the broad ears, each one marked with a crossed line, and picks out the tusks and the tip of the trunk. Against the striped body of the globe, the effect is bold and graphic.

The sphere itself is beautifully worked: light and dark stripes, toothed ridges, and spiral rosettes that turn like small wheels. The trunk, open at the end, may have served as the spout.

An elephant stands astride a large globular vessel, its forelegs planted on the top of the sphere and its hind legs braced against the side. The great round ears are painted red and incised with a cross; the tusks and the tip of the trunk are also touched with red.

The body of the vessel is divided by pale vertical bands alternating with dark serrated ribs, and is set with circular spiral rosettes. The vessel rests on a short cylindrical foot.