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)

• Origin

  Guangdong province, China

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1200s, 1300s

• Name

  Bing, Siegfried, Freer, Charles Lang

• Place

  China, Guangdong province

• Topic

  Rites and ceremonies, Tea, Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Peony, Lacquer repair, Stoneware, Chinese Art, Lacquer, Yuan dynasty (1279 - 1368), Ceramics

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)