Bambara Ceramic Wedding Vessel

Marriage is a large undertaking. So is this pot.

This wedding vessel is Bambara work from Mali, West Africa, made of terra cotta in the 19th century. Among peoples of the region, large clay jars stored water and grain, the basics of a household, and finer ones could mark the founding of a new one. The ovoid body sits on a small foot and rises to a flared neck. Raised cords gather at the shoulder, knotted over bands of fine incised zigzags. Patches of orange and sooty black mottle the surface. Twenty-one inches high and fifteen across.

It holds more than most vows ask for.