Detail of The Frog Man by Carries in the Metropolitan Museum, March 2022

Title: Le Grenouillard (The Frog Man)

Maker: Jean-Joseph Carriès (French, Lyons 1855–1894 Paris)

Date: ca. 1891

Culture: French, Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye

Medium: Glazed stoneware

Dimensions: wt. confirmed: 13 in., 29.1 lb. (33 cm, 13.2 kg)

Classification: Ceramics-Pottery

Credit Line: Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection, Purchase, Acquisitions Fund; Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; and 2011 Benefit Fund, 2013

Accession Number: 2013.490

Carriès reveled in the textural possibility of ceramic glazes. He used drips, welts, and cracks to create unusual forms. Here, a bug-eyed amphibian man squats low to the ground. He seems to have oozed out of the same muddy source as the frog he embraces with a sinewy limb.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/239562