Jar, Banshan or Machang type ware

Object Details

• Description

  Jar; medium size, thin-walled, hand-built; wide mouth, slightly everted lip with two strap handles extending to the bottom of the short neck; widest part of belly is placed low; sharp taper to small flat base which is slightly less than half the diameter of the mouth. Chips and repair as noted below.

  Clay: light brownish red, fine-grained, hard, medium-fired, burnished smooth surface.

  Glaze: none.

  Decoration: Painted before firing in black and dark red of brownish and purplish tone. Area covered extends from inside mouth to within 3/4 cm. of base. Band inside mouth of alternate black and red triangles separated by triple lines and resting on plain black band. Handles have X with enclosed dots, neck a cross-hatch lattice pattern between two red bands. At top of body is a black border with a fine-toothed serrated edge. Depending from this is a swag pattern of broad black bands with serrated edges on the buff ground and with narrow separating red bands. The design is finished by a black band above the base. The fringed-edge bands, although once thought to occur only in funeral sites, have since been found on pottery from habitation sites.

• Label

  By the time these earthenware vessels were made, Chinese potters had been shaping and firing clays for nearly two thousand years, a long-standing expertise reflected in the objects' 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)

  Chinese Ceramics: Glazed Ceramics of the Tenth through Thirteenth Century (March 9, 1987 to July 19, 1988)

  Chinese Ceramics (March 15, 1982 to July 10, 1986)

  Chinese Art (March 9, 1981 to March 12, 1982)

  Chinese Ceramics (May 9, 1980 to March 6, 1981)

  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

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  BCE 2000s

• Place

  Gansu province, China

• Topic

  Art, Chinese Art, Neolithic period (ca. 7000 - ca. 1700 BCE), Pottery, Funerary, Ceramics, Banshan ware, Machang ware, Iron pigment

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)