Flask with face. Culture: French, Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye. Dimensions: H. 15 1/2 in.; wt. confirmed: 9.5 lb. (39.4 cm, 4.3 kg). Maker: Jean-Joseph Carriès (French, Lyons 1855-1894 Paris). Date: ca. 1890.The grimacing face reveals the artist's gifts as a sculptor-his profession before becoming a ceramicist. Carriès made an important series of masks, inspired by Japanese Noh theater and the gargoyles and carved faces on Gothic church architecture. His stoneware flasks with faces are an offshoot of this production. The bearded face as a motif on a water jug has its origins in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century German stoneware vessels known as Beardman or Bellarmine jugs. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.