Portrait head jar

This head jar made of clay, natural brown clay for features with details of headdress ornament incised and painted in reddish brown and buff slips. Vessels in the likeness of human heads, slightly less than half natural size, with a wide opening in the top of the head as in this piece, frequently have so vivid a sense of observed reality, which they appear to be portraits. Like other Michica pots they are cast from moulds, with details added, painted and otherwise decorated, then baked. As grave offerings portrait head pots were a favourite subject of the Michica fully developed period, about 200 to 700 A.D.