Bowl with design of pine trees

Object Details

• Artist

  Style of Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743)

  Kyoto workshop, Kenzan style

• Description

  Bowl; round with smooth surface and finely cut thin foot; signed Kenzan. Box.

  Clay: fairly fine grained brownish buff stoneware.

  Glaze: clear, finely crackled.

  Decoration: pine trees with blue needles on ground of white slip, on one side inside, and on the other outside.

• Marks

  Kenzan

• Label

  The earliest ceramics made by the Kyoto potter Ogata Kenzan are finely wrought works that echo the shapes and colors of contemporaneous luxury goods, including lacquer and albums of poetry illustrated with Japanese-style painting. Later in his career, Kenzan developed simplified versions of decoration that could be reproduced quickly and in quantity, responding to their immense popularity. As seen in the landscape with a pine grove on this bowl, the abbreviated “Kenzan style” of decoration became a staple of Kyoto ceramic workshops. The bowl originally had a matching lid and was one of a set of bowls used for serving steamed food.

• Provenance

  To 1961

  Howard Hollis and Company, Cleveland, Ohio. [1]

  From 1961

  Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from Howard Hollis and Company, Cleveland, Ohio. [2]

  Notes:

  [1] Curatorial Remark 1 in the object record.

  [2] See note 1.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Landscapes in Japanese Art (February 2 to July 15, 2007)

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

  Korean Influences on Japanese Slip-Decorated Ceramics (February 16, 1984 to November 9, 1984)

  Boxed In: Japanese Ceramics and Their Storage Boxes (September 23, 1982 to February 17, 1983)

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

  Special Exhibition—Japanese Art (October 16, 1963 to August 18, 1967)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Howard Hollis and Company (established 1949)

• Origin

  Kyoto, Kyoto prefecture, Japan

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• 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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• Name

  Howard Hollis and Company

• Place

  Kyoto, Japan, Kyoto prefecture

• Topic

  Pine tree, Art, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Ceramics

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)