This dish was made by Michael Cardew at the Abuja Pottery in Nigeria. Cardew had been employed by the colonial government in order to explore ways of improving the quality of locally produced pottery. However, Cardew himself believed that the traditional pottery had achieved a refined state of beauty, was well-suited to local needs, and could not be improved on. Instead, he proposed the foundation of a centre where potters could be trained to produce glazed wares to supply the demands of the new middle class, and helped to establish small local potteries for this purpose. In practice, this scheme was not entirely successful, and over time the emphasis shifted to the production of high-quality wares for the local and developing overseas market, made at Abuja by a core group of the most successful trainees. This jar was bought from an exhibition of Abuja pottery held at the Berkeley Galleries in London in 1958.