Museum accessions.(Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, traces its origins to the nineteenth-century newspaper publisher William Rockhill Nelson's feeling that Kansas City was "incredibly commonplace and ugly. I decided that if I were to live here, the town must be made over." On his death, his will stipulated that when his wife and daughter died, all the proceeds of his estate were to be used for "the purchase of works of art and reproductions of works of the fine arts, such as paintings, engravings, sculpture, tapestries and rare books ... which will contribute to the delectation and enjoyment of the public generally." Thus, when the museum opened in 1933, the collection consisted largely of European and American paintings and Asian works of art, strengths that have continued to this day, even as the museum's holdings have expanded to incorporate many other fields. The last few years have been particularly good to the decorative arts collection.

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For example, the museum's extensive Frank P. and Harriet C. Burnap collection of English pottery contains a superb group of Staffordshire slipwares, but it lacked an outstanding figural object, a gap now filled by the delightful owl jug illustrated below. Made between about 1690 and 1710, mostly in northern Staffordshire, such jugs were quite popular, perhaps because the form is believed to have been as much decorative as functional. The body was probably wheel thrown and then pressed into a mold to form the wings. The removable head, which can be used as a cup, was thrown separately. Several features link the jug to four others that are all believed to be by the same, as yet unidentified, potter: the large circular eyes rimmed with dark brown dotted with light-colored slip, the distinctive combing, wings in relief, and the applied three-toed feet ...