Kenzan-style food bowl with design of pine trees

Object Details

• Artist

  Style of Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743)

  Kyoto workshop, Kenzan style

• Description

  Bowl (futujawan), missing lid, ovoidal; bold foot. Gold lacquer repairs.

  Clay: buff stoneware, fired in reduction.

  Glaze: transparent.

  Decoration: in cobalt and iron, with patch of white slip, under glaze.

  Signature: Kenzan, written in iron on foot.

• Signatures

  Kenzan, written in iron on foot.

• Label

  The earliest ceramics made by the Kyoto potter Ogata Kenzan are finely wrought works that echo the shapes and colors of contemporaneous luxury goods, including lacquer and albums of poetry illustrated with Japanese-style painting. Later in his career, Kenzan developed simplified versions of decoration that could be reproduced quickly and in quantity, responding to their immense popularity. As seen in the landscape with a pine grove on this bowl, the abbreviated “Kenzan style” of decoration became a staple of Kyoto ceramic workshops. The bowl originally had a matching lid and was one of a set of bowls used for serving steamed food.

• Provenance

  To 1899

  Bunkio Matsuki (1867-1940), Boston, to 1899 [1]

  From 1899 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Bunkio Matsuki in 1899 [2]

  From 1920

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

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Pottery List, L. 428, 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

  Parades: Freer Ceramics Installed by Gwyn Hanssen Pigott (November 4, 2006 to January 7, 2008)

  The Potter's Brush: The Kenzan Style in Japanese Ceramics (December 9, 2001 to October 27, 2002)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Bunkio Matsuki 松木文恭 (1867-1940) (C.L. Freer source)

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

• Origin

  Kyoto, Kyoto 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, 1860s, 1670s, 1660s

• Name

  Freer, Charles Lang, Matsuki, Bunkio

• Place

  Kyoto, Japan, Kyoto prefecture

• Topic

  Pine tree, Tea, Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Stoneware, Kyoto ware, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Ceramics

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)