Seto ware flask

Object Details

• Description

  Light gray clay. Pale green ash glaze of irregular thickness with heavy runs toward foot, continuing over unglazed base; stained at a later date with Chinese ink. Triple lines incised with comb around neck and upper body; two widely spaced single lines incised around midpoint of body. Black lacquer and applied gold leaf repair on rim.

• Label

  This flask was made by a potter working at the Seto kilns, near the modern city of Nagoya. The kilns began making glazed stoneware ceramics in the twelfth century and are still active today as a major center of ceramic production. Wares made between the twelfth and early sixteenth centuries are known as Old Seto.

  The shape of this flask, with its high shoulders, tapering walls, and narrow base, belongs to the middle period of the five phases of Old Seto chronology as archaeologists currently construe it. The positioning of the three incised bands, with the lowest placed quite far down on the body, also agrees with fourteenth-century types. On the interior wall, clear traces of the wide clay coils from which the flask was built show that the coils were not well consolidated in the construction process. Clinging to the interior wall are flecks of what appears to be cinnabar red lacquer, which would have been applied to prevent leaking.

  With its narrow opening, this type of flask was used in a secular context to serve distilled rice wine or sake. Many such flasks have been handed down in Buddhist temples, where they served as altar vases, and in Shinto shrines, where they contained offertory sake. This flask, however, would seem to have been "collected" as an antique at some point. One owner stained the flask with Chinese ink to emphasize the crackle pattern in the glaze. The same owner probably ordered a specialist to repair the chipped rim with black lacquer imbedded with gold-leaf flakes of identical scale as the crackle.

• Provenance

  Hayashi Tadamasa (1853-1906), Paris [1]

  To 1914

  William Baumgarten and Company, New York to 1914 [2]

  From 1914 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from William Baumgarten and Company, New York, in 1914 [3]

  From 1920

  Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [4]

  Notes:

  [1] See Charles Lang Freer, Note on List, Object file.

  [2] See Original Pottery List, L. 2383, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

  [3] See note 2.

  [4] 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

  The Idea of China in Japan: The Tea Ceremony in Japan (December 19, 1999 to June 11, 2000)

  The Glazed Ceramic Tradition of Mino and Seto Wares (April 26, 1985 to January 13, 1986)

  Japanese and Chinese Lacquer (September 22, 1982 to June 30, 1983)

  Japanese Lacquer (April 16, 1979 to October 8, 1980)

  Japanese Ceramics (April 11, 1978 to January 17, 1980)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Hayashi Tadamasa 林 忠正? (1853-1906)

  William Baumgarten and Company (C.L. Freer source)

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

• Origin

  possibly Kayakari kiln, Seto, Aichi prefecture, Japan

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

  There are restrictions for re-using this media. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1300s

• Name

  Baumgarten, Freer, Charles Lang, Hayashi, Tadamasa

• Place

  Aichi prefecture, Kayakari kiln, Japan, Seto

• Topic

  Charles Lang Freer collection, Kamakura period (1185 - 1333), Art, Lacquer repair, Stoneware, Japanese Art, Lacquer, Ceramics, Seto ware

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)