Jar with Cover c. 1936

Curator: Hedwig Emanuel’s "Jar with Cover," dating from around 1936, presents a curious object study rendered in watercolor and drawing. What's your initial read? Editor: The most striking aspect is its monumentality achieved on paper. The rich, earthy brown tones also give a rustic, hand-made quality to the otherwise stately vessel. The drips and pooling pigment add to its wabi-sabi appeal. Curator: That earthiness is important, I think. Brown has long been a color of humility, service, and the everyday. Even this idealized depiction roots us in material existence. The jar as a symbol carries associations with nurturing and domestic life but is more obviously a depiction of domestic servitude than something like a cozy teapot. Editor: Certainly, this is no mere ornament. It speaks to functionality, storage, and possibly even fermentation, all pointing to labor. One can easily envision the clay being worked and fired to make this vessel, each stage handled by practiced hands. Curator: Indeed. Water jars have signified purity and cleansing in many cultures. It makes me wonder if this artwork served as some reflection of that universal theme. The presence of water, life itself, conserved inside an artifact representing feminine creativity and nurturing. Editor: You're drawn to the conceptual meaning. I see the process; the watercolor allows for transparency, mimicking the glaze. And I’m interested in its almost blueprint-like quality – see the sketch in the upper right, like technical design. It emphasizes utility, pushing back against readings about ritual associations or deep-rooted symbolism. Curator: It could easily encompass both, couldn't it? After all, it doesn’t depict the act of creation. It's simply a thing existing in itself as much as a sketch for its duplication, alluding both to a reverence and a method for the artifact itself. Editor: Perhaps a bit of both then, its very medium capturing that meeting point. A record that balances reverence for tradition alongside pragmatic documentation. Curator: A synthesis. How perfect to contemplate the symbol within the physical properties.