Tea bowl with design of pampas grass

Object Details

• Artist

  Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743)

  Chojiyamachi workshop

• Description

  Tea bowl, low ovoidal; low foot. Gold lacquer repair.

  Clay: fine-grained buff stoneware

  Glaze: transparent, over white slip.

  Decoration: in cobalt and iron, under glaze. Grasses.

• Signatures

  Kenzan, written in iron inside footrim.

• Label

  The pampas grass (susuki; Miscanthus sinensis) is renowned as one of the seven grasses of autumn, and is so designated in Japan's oldest native verse collection, the eighth-century anthology Mamyoshu (Collection of myriad leaves). As a ritual offering, susuki appears in the full-moon festival jugoya--the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month), where celebrants arrange an offering of fruit, rice dumplings, and pampas grass to the moon-spirit. Pampas grass rose to prominence as a motif in the late sixteenth century, when it was employed as a lacquer decoration in the Toyotomi family mortuary temple, Kodaiji. By Kenzan's time, it had become a general autumnal symbol as in this poem:

  Pampas grass in the wind--

  Waves farewell, farewell

  To the departing autumn.

• Provenance

  1911

  Y. Fujita and Company, Kyoto 1911 [1]

  From 1911 to 1919

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

  From 1920

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

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Pottery List, L. 2189, 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

  Rinpa: Creativity Across Time and Space (October 1, 2022 to April 2, 2023)

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

  Japanese Art (April 13 to November 21, 1995)

• 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

  Usage Conditions Apply

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• Date

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• 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, Grasses

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)