Baru Mare in Hunedoara county was the main centre for the production of household pots for Hațeg Country and Jiu Valley. The pots produced here and in the surrounding villages (Baru Mic, Livadia de Câmp, Livadia de Coastă) were known as “Bar pots”, due to the fact that the clay used came from Baru Mare, being of very good quality. The main feature of Bar pottery is represented by the thin walls of the pots. The heyday of pottery in this area was the 19th century. The pots produced in these centers, resistant over time and at very high temperatures, were for household use, unglazed or only partially glazed (on the mouth and inside). Usually, the potter’s workshop was in the living room, and in the yard was the kiln for burning pots. The kilns were of different sizes, depending on the production volume of each potter. These kilns, like the one in the image made by Romulus Vuia, in 1923, in the yard of a potter from Baru Mare, had a truncated shape. The kiln is placed next to a construction with wooden walls and gable roof with shingle covering. The kiln’s walls are built of brick or stone, with soldering.
At the bottom, you can see one of the fire pits, through which the fire was lit. Beech wood was used for burning. The brick wall is interrupted at the side by an opening used to easily place pots inside the kiln. After the kiln was filled with pots, this opening was walled up. In front of the kiln, there is a potter preparing the dry pots for burning, dressed up in work clothes made of home-woven cloth: a long shirt with wide sleeves raised above the elbow and wide drawers. Due to the exigency of craftsmen from Baru Mare, the first burning of the unglazed pots took 7-8 hours, at a temperature of 900 degrees, and the second burning of the glazed pots took other 7 hours. In the image, two types of pots can be distinguished, that were produced in the centre from Baru Mare: the “belted pot”, ovoid, pot-bellied, of large dimensions, which has an alveolated belt and two wide and short ring handles placed under the round mouth, positioned face to face. The second type of pot specific to this centre is the cooking pot, of different sizes, with two ring handles placed side by side, on the same side of the mouth (called “ulcoanie”). Sidely, there are a woman and three children, two boys and a girl, of different ages, probably the potter’s family. The cliché, registered with title “Potter”, with inventory no. 20, is made in the gelatin-silver bromide technique on glass support, with dimensions of 9 cm x 12 cm.
Photo: the MET archive