Tea bowl with design of blossoming plum tree, unknown Raku ware workshop

Object Details

• Description

  Tea bowl, ovoidal; small rounded foot.

  Clay: soft, grayish.

  Glaze: luminous black.

  Decoration: incised in glaze; filled with white glaze, crackled; details in underglaze cobalt.

• Label

  Touches of cobalt on the painted plum branch adorning this pottery bowl allude playfully to cobalt decoration found on white porcelain vessels. The earliest Raku tea bowls were monochrome black, but later potters introduced decoration by scraping away portions of the glaze and coating those areas with white slip as a ground for painted motifs.

• Provenance

  To 1911

  Y. Fujita and Company, Kyoto, to 1911 [1]

  From 1911 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Y. Fujita and Company in 1911 [2]

  From 1920

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

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Pottery List, L. 2176, 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

  Bold and Beautiful: Rinpa in Japanese Art (June 28, 2015 to January 3, 2016)

  The Arts of Japan (July 14, 2012 to January 13, 2013)

  Seasons: Arts of Japan (February 5, 2011 to January 13, 2013)

  Tea Bowls in Bloom: Botanical Decoration on Tea Ceremony Ceramics (February 3 to July 15, 2007)

  Tea in the Floating World (December 8, 2002 to May 26, 2003)

  Special Exhibition of Japanese Pottery (October 29, 1971 to October 31, 1971)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Y. Fujita and Company (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

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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, 1850s, 1680s, 1670s, 1860s, 1660s

• Name

  Freer, Charles Lang, Fujita

• Place

  Kyoto, Japan, Kyoto prefecture

• Topic

  Tea, Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Ceramics, Raku ware, Plum tree, Plum blossom

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)