A Water Container

Wheel-turned and painted pottery of Kutch region of Gujarat has a long-standing aesthetic kinship with the living pottery traditions of Sindh in Pakistan, and sometimes echoes, in their forms and the painted motifs, the ethos of the Harappan pottery. Pots and pot-sherds excavated at Dholavira and other Harappan sites in Kutch provide enough material for such a comparison.

The living tradition of pottery, mainly practiced by the Muslim potters is marked by their fine finish, delicate forms as well as a range of floral, faunal and geometric motifs painted in black and red. Interestingly, there has been an old tradition of Muslim potters making figures of elephants, sometimes with attached lamp-bowls, to be placed at the entrance of a Hindu home during the Diwali festivities.

This pot is adorned with multiple, painted ornate bands of which the broadest over the shoulder has stylized peacock motifs. The shape of the pot indicates that it was meant for fetching water from a well by women.