Jug

Dated to the Parthian period of the first through third century BCE, this jug has a green, alkaline glaze that has degraded and even entirely worn off in some areas. Although it was badly damaged when Freer purchased it from Dikran Kelekian in 1905, he regarded the piece as "interesting," and in the Peacock Room he grouped it with other similarly time-ravaged examples of Mesopotamian pottery. He believed that the surfaces of these Near Eastern vessels resonated with the complex chromatic qualities of his American paintings, particularly those by James McNeill Whistler, Thomas Dewing, and Dwight Tryon.