Omuro ware freshwater jar for the tea ceremony

Object Details

• Artist

  Nonomura Ninsei (active ca. 1646-77)

• Description

  Cylindrical in shape, the jar has a wide, round mouth, and widens to a rounded bottom and flat base. The wheelmade stoneware body is coated with multiple applications of polychrome glazes. Two vertical, pierced "rolled leaf" lug handles are attached on opposite sides. Pronounced broad, irregular crackle to the glaze. Stamped base.

  Round, brown-black lacquered wood lid, with loop handle. Accompanying boxes.

• Marks

  Stamped base

• Label

  Nonomura Ninsei can be counted in the handful of Japanese ceramic artists known by name, along with Chojiro and Kenzan, who have exerted the most profound and lasting influence on the development of Japanese ceramics. Ninsei represents the essence of Kyoto ceramics: he absorbed and reinterpreted all the major trends and tastes of his time, and his work had a polish and finesse characteristic of most crafts made in the old imperial capital.

  This intellectually complex jar (just the sort that Kyoto tea masters loved) looks back to influential Japanese ceramics of the late sixteenth century.

• Provenance

  Yamada Takeji, Kobe, Japan [1]

  To 1998

  Takashi Yanagi, Kyoto, to 1998

  From 1998

  Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from Takashi Yanagi in1998

  Notes:

  [1] The object was included in an exhibition of Yamada Takeji's collection, held at the Osaka Municipal Art Museum, the Tokugawa Art Museum, and the Nezu Art Museum in 1967, and in a publication, Shoki Kyoyaki, later translated as Masahiko Sato, Arts of Japan 2, Kyoto Ceramics (N.Y., Tokyo: Weatherhill/Shibundo, 1973). See Curatorial Note 3, Louise Cort, 5 January 1998, in the object record.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  The Potter's Mark: Tea Ceramics and Their Makers (August 18, 2007 to February 24, 2008)

  Rusticity Refined: Kyoto Ceramics by Ninsei (March 19 to October 23, 2005)

  Faith and Form: Selected Calligraphy and Painting from the Japanese Religious Traditions (March 20 to July 18, 2004)

  Beyond the Legacy--Anniversary Acquisitions of the Freer Gallery of Art (October 11, 1998 to April 11, 1999)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Yamada Takeji

  Takashi Yanagi

• Origin

  Omuro kiln, 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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  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, 1610s, 1650s, 1640s, 1630s, 1620s, 1690s, 1840s, 1680s, 1850s, 1670s, 1860s, 1660s

• Name

  Yamada, Takeji, Takashi, Yanagi

• Place

  Omuro kiln, Kyoto, Japan, Kyoto prefecture

• Topic

  Water, Tea, Art, Stoneware, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Lacquer, Omuro ware, Ceramics

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)