Tea bowl named Ochiba (Fallen Leaves), Takatori or Yatsushiro ware

Tea bowl, almost cylindrical with straight sides tapering slightly inward and high, square-cut foot.
Name: Ochiba [Jpn].
Clay: gray stoneware, medium texture, fired reddish brown.
Glaze: yellowish buff and iron brown with rust-like patches and some greenish flow. Foot unglazed.
Decoration: glaze only.

Historical period(s)
Edo period, 1630-1650
Medium
Stoneware with iron, rice-straw-ash, and wood-ash glazes
Style
Takatori ware
Dimensions
H x Diam: 8.1 × 10.9 cm (3 3/16 × 4 5/16 in)
Geography
Japan, Fukuoka prefecture, possibly Shirahatayama kiln
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art
Accession Number
F1897.34
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Tea bowl

Keywords
Edo period (1615 - 1868), Japan, stoneware, Takatori ware, tea
Provenance

To 1897
Bunkio Matsuki (1867-1940), Boston, to 1897 [1]

From 1897 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Bunkio Matsuki in 1897 [2]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] See Original Pottery List, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[2] See note 1.

[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919
Bunkio Matsuki (C.L. Freer source) 1867-1940

Description

Tea bowl, almost cylindrical with straight sides tapering slightly inward and high, square-cut foot.
Name: Ochiba [Jpn].
Clay: gray stoneware, medium texture, fired reddish brown.
Glaze: yellowish buff and iron brown with rust-like patches and some greenish flow. Foot unglazed.
Decoration: glaze only.

Label

The potter applied three different glazes to achieve a patchwork effect popular on ceramics, textiles, and lacquered objects of the early seventeenth century. The bowl's name, Fallen Leaves, refers to this mottled coloration-or perhaps to the inspired addition of the "finger-painted" spots. Freer appreciated this "very beautiful specimen."

Published References
  • Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections. 12 vols., Tokyo. vol. 10, pl. 161.
  • Soetsu Yanagi. Oshie kaisetsu. no. 5 Tokyo, May, 1931. p. 53, fig. 9.
Collection Area(s)
Japanese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
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