Jar, cut down in Japan for use as tea-ceremony water jar
Object Details
- Description
- Jar, cut down; tall wide-mouthed; deep contracting foot. Gold lacquer repairs.
- Clay: dense, soft, brownish.
- Glaze: lustrous gray, with brownish and reddish areas; crackled and pitted. Rim ground off and foot unglazed.
- Decoration: painted in under-glaze brown: two peony sprays.
- The glaze is not celadon, but was intended to be a clear porcelain-type glaze that was tinted gray by poor refinement of raw materials, with the areas of red resulting from uneven firing atmosphere. Under Glaze, deleted Celadon after Lustrous gray.
- Label
- In its original form this jar was half again as tall and bore four lugs on its shoulders beneath a narrow mouth. Jars of this type are excavated in Japan. The reason for the careful removal of the (presumably) broken top of this jar and grinding down of the shoulder to make a smooth edge is explained by the similar treatment of a Cizhou ware bottle now in the Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya, repository for the collection of the Owari Tokugawa warrior house. That bottle, of similar shape, has been ground down at the same level around the shoulder, and Tokugawa storeroom records from the first half of the nineteenth century describe the piece as a mizusashi (freshwater jar for use in the tea ceremony). A narrow mizusashi is required for use in tea gatherings of the tenth month. Fitted with a lacquered wooden lid, a damaged Chinese bottle could be cleverly salvaged for that purpose.
- Provenance
- To 1901
- Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), Paris to 1901 [1]
- From 1901 to 1919
- Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Siegfried Bing, Paris in 1901
- From 1920
- Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]
- Notes:
- [1] See Original Pottery List, L. 942, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.
- [2] See note 1.
- [3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.
- Collection
- Freer Gallery of Art Collection
- Previous custodian or owner
- Siegfried Bing (1838-1905) (C.L. Freer source)
- Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- 1279-1368
- Period
- Yuan dynasty
- Accession Number
- F1901.63
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Vessel
- Medium
- Stoneware with iron decoration under clear glaze; gold lacquer repairs
- Dimensions
- H x Diam: 20.4 × 18.3 cm (8 1/16 × 7 3/16 in)
- Origin
- Guangdong province, China
- Related Online Resources
- Google Cultural Institute
- See more items in
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
- Topic
- lacquer
- ceramic
- peony
- Yuan dynasty (1279 - 1368)
- tea
- China
- stoneware
- Chinese Art
- ceremony
- lacquer repair
- Charles Lang Freer collection
- Record ID
- fsg_F1901.63
- Metadata Usage (text)
- Not determined
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ye33e34f9cd-dfbb-4095-8a64-9354a92544ac
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