Sri Lankan Engraved Brass Drinking Water Pot

This heavy-gauge brass water pot has a globular form with a narrow neck which widens to a mouth set with a handle cast has two cobras with their bodies entwined in a figure-of-eight knot. The pot stands on four small feet.

The sides are elaborately engraved with foliage and two nari lata forest nymph figures which emerge from the foliage, all within an upper and a lower lotus petal border.

See Ranatunga (2007, p. 70) for a less elaborate example.

Water pots such as this example were used beneath a stone water filter of a type traditionally used in Sri Lanka for hundreds of years. A stone vessel suspended in a wooden frame would allow water to drip through its base thereby filtering the water. A water pot such as the example here would be placed beneath the stone filter and the water would drip into it.

The example here is in fine condition.