Majang ware urn

Object Details

• Description

  Urn, with globular body, tall neck with everted mouth, and flat base. One strap handle, overlaid with a narrower strip of clay, longitudinally oriented, at the juncture of neck and shoulder; two-thirds down the urn on the other side is one small projection in the form of a vestigal handle, latitudinally oriented.

  Clay: buff earthenware; surface has many scratch marks and small holes.

  Glaze: none.

  Decoration: geometric design painted in black and dark reddish brown. The main zone, which occupies the upper three-quarters of the exterior, is defined by two horizontal bands, one running around the shoulder and the other one-quarter of the way around the base. The decoration of this zone consists of four large circles with identical decoration, separated by a supplementary motif of one pair of bifurcated curved lines at the bottom. The circles are filled with a design which consists of a cross whose four arms are traversed by six trellised bands; the spaces left within each circle are filled with four [drawing]-shaped motifs. Around the neck are two rows of tapering vertical lines. Around the interior of the neck are three rows of the saw-tooth motif, each of which increases in height.

• Label

  By the time this earthenware vessel was made, Chinese potters had been shaping and firing clays for nearly two thousand years, a long-standing expertise reflected in the object's confident shapes and matching dynamic designs. Burnished surfaces, like that on the storage urn, indicate special treatment and may reveal the unusual status of their owners. As many as one hundred such earthenwares have been found in a single tomb, suggesting that Neolithic vessels shared similar functions and status as bronze vessels during the ensuing Bronze Age.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Clay and Metal: Ancient Chinese Ceramics and Metal (February 25, 1997 to August 9, 2011)

  A Decade of Discovery: Selected Acquisitions 1970-1980 (November 9, 1979 to May 22, 1980)

  Chinese Ceramics (April 11, 1978 to September 4, 1980)

  Chinese Calligraphy and Ceramics (April 18, 1977 to April 8, 1978)

  Chinese Art (January 1, 1963 to March 6, 1981)

• Origin

  Gansu province, China

• Credit Line

  Gift of Mrs. Anna C. Chennault

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  BCE 2000s, BCE 1000s

• Place

  Gansu province, China

• Topic

  Art, Chinese Art, Neolithic period (ca. 7000 - ca. 1700 BCE), Pottery, Ceramics, Gansu ware

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)