Vase, with lacquer lid for use as tea ceremony water jar

Object Details

• Description

  Flower vase (hanaire); irregular lip with slight flare; bulging neck; body with four spiral indentations; two horizontal loop handles; shell scars (kaime) on base.

  Lacquer cover.

  Glay: medium reddish stoneware.

  Glaze: olive with large splashes of bluish gray; dark olive brown on lip and neck dripping down sides.

• Label

  This vase exhibits the massive proportions, distorted form, and complex glazing characteristic of avant-garde Japanese ceramic taste at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Potters working at various kilns in southern Japan, including Takatori and Satsuma, produced richly varied surfaces on many of their tea wares by combining iron-brown and rice-straw-ash white glazes. Where the two glazes overlapped or ran together, they produced shades of chocolate or blue-black, often with speckled texture. Karatsu ware bearing this combination of overlapping glazes is known as "Korean Karatsu." Despite its size, this vase originally was intended to hang from a hook in the alcove; after that practice went out of fashion, the hole was filled with dark lacquer.

• Provenance

  To 1905

  Bunkio Matsuki (1867-1940), Boston, to 1905 [1]

  From 1905 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Bunkio Matsuki in 1905 [2]

  From 1920

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

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Pottery List, pg. 324, 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

  Imperfectly Beautiful: Inventing Japanese Ceramic Style (October 14, 2017 - October 14, 2019)

  The Power to See Beauty (October 14, 2017 to September 6, 2022)

  Cornucopia: Ceramics of Southern Japan (December 19, 2009 to January 9, 2011)

  Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics (November 8, 2008 to May 10, 2009)

  Rusticity Refined: Kyoto Ceramics by Ninsei (March 19 to October 23, 2005)

  The Tea Ceremony in Japan X (April 3 to November 28, 1999)

  Japanese Ceramics from Past to Present (February 18, 1983 to February 16, 1984)

• Previous custodian or owner

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

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

• Origin

  Imari, Saga prefecture, Japan

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1590s, 1610s

• Name

  Freer, Charles Lang, Matsuki, Bunkio

• Place

  Imari, Japan, Saga prefecture

• Topic

  Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Momoyama period (1573 - 1615), Stoneware, Japanese Art, Karatsu ware, Chosen Karatsu type, Ceramics

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)