Fragment of the side wall of a large storage jar

Object Details

• Description

  Shape: Fragment of the side wall of a large, iron-brown Khmer storage jar. The shard is uniformly 1.4 cm thick.

  Clay: Rough, coarse with many large inclusions, some approaching the size of small pebbles. The stoneware body changes hue from dark gray inside the glazed face to a buff on the unglazed inner surface of the jar. The inclusions are mostly brick-red or sandy colored. Air pockets are few and small. The body of the jar oxidized brick-red where it burned through the glaze.

  Glaze: The patchy iron-brown glaze has adhered well in the grooves of the incised design but is very uneven elsewhere. The inside of the shard is completely unglazed.

  Decoration: The entire shard is covered with incised geometric designs. There are (at least) two incised horizontal lines at the top of the shard and seven at the bottom. These two sets of horizontal rings are connected at 3.0-cm intervals by incised vertical lines which appear in sets of three. Below the bottom set of horizontal rings there is the remnant of a design of combed incising. The motif of this combed design cannot be discerned.

  Marks: "Angkor Thom Pool" is written in pencil on the inside surface of the shard.

• Marks

  "Angkor Thom Pool" is written in pencil on the inside surface of the shard.

• Provenance

  To 1957

  John A. Pope (1906-1982), Washington DC, collected between August 1956 and April 1957 in Angkor, Cambodia. [1]

  From 1957

  Freer Gallery of Art, gift of John A. Pope, Washington DC [2]

  Notes:

  [1] See Curatorial Remark 2 in the object record. See also “Ceramics in Mainland and Southeast Asia: Collections in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery”, copy in object file, Collections Management Office.

  [2] See note 1. See also object file, Collections Management Office.

• Collection

  Freer Study Collection

• Previous custodian or owner

  Dr. John Alexander Pope (1906-1982)

• Origin

  Cambodia or Northeast Thailand

• Credit Line

  Gift of John A. Pope

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1400s, 1000s

• Name

  Pope, John Alexander

• Place

  Cambodia, Thailand

• Topic

  Art, Stoneware, Southeast Asian Art, Ceramics, Angkor period (802 - 1431)

• Culture

  Southeast Asians

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)