Some pieces earn their place by presence before they are explained, and this is one. A large, heavy studio stoneware vessel thrown in deep iron-brown and ringed with throwing lines, a dark glaze pooling at the small neck and a single rust-coloured run breaking down one side. It has the weight and the seriousness of something made to hold a room.

Near the base is an impressed oval seal, glaze-filled and so far unread, a maker's mark that has not given up its name. We are not going to invent one. It stays attributed to no one for now, a confident, accomplished vessel carrying a seal that simply waits for the right eye. The not-knowing is part of it.