Inkyuzan ware tea bowl in Goki shape, with impressed cipher

Object Details

• Description

  Tea-bowl, deep ovoid, on high spreading notched foot.

  Goki [JPN] shape.

  Clay: hard, dense, grayish. Orange flush on surface.

  Glaze: grayish-white with slight greenish tinge, flushed with faint mauve-pink; crackled.

  Impressed mark: Cipher of Ikeda Nakamasa, on body near foot.

• Label

  The cipher impressed near the foot of this bowl is that of Ikeda Nakamasa, head of a branch of the Tottori clan. Nakamasa commissioned such bowls at the Imkyuzan pottery sponsored by the main Ikeda house. The bowls were probably executed by a potter who was brought in shortly after 1800 from the large ceramic center of Shigaraki.

• Provenance

  To 1897

  Yamanaka & Company, New York to 1897 [1]

  From 1897 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Yamanaka & Company in 1897 [2]

  From 1920

  Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Pottery List, L. 493, 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

• Exhibition History

  Garden Potteries and Official Kilns: Clan-Sponsored Ceramics in the Edo Period (January 16, 1986 to November 3, 1986)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Yamanaka and Co. 山中商会 (1917-1965) (C.L. Freer source)

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

• Origin

  Tottori prefecture, Japan

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, 1610s, 1650s, 1640s, 1630s, 1620s, 1690s, 1840s, 1680s, 1850s, 1670s, 1860s, 1660s

• Name

  Freer, Charles Lang, Yamanaka and Co.

• Place

  Japan, Tottori prefecture

• Topic

  Tea, Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Stoneware, Inaba ware, Inkyuzan type, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Ceramics

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)