Cleveland Museum of Art

Face Urn

Date

25–50 CE

Medium

reddish ware with gray burnished slip

Culture

Rhenish (Cologne), Gallo Roman, 2nd quarter, 1st Century

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This wheel-thrown vase is decorated with humanlike facial features and a phallus applied to the face’s cheek. Wide arching eyebrows meet at the short bridge of the face’s puggy nose, which sits over lips pursed around its protruding tongue. Finger marks can be seen around the eyes and eyebrows where clay was added onto the surface of the vessel to form the facial features. The phallus was often used as a protective symbol in the ancient world.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.