Kenzan style tea bowl with inscription and design of narcissus

Object Details

• Artist

  Style of Ogata Kenzan 尾形 乾山 (1663-1743)

  Kyoto workshop, Kenzan style

• Description

  Tea-bowl, cylindrical; low basal ring.

  Clay: stoneware; hard, grayish.

  Glaze: transparent, appearing cream, with areas of gray and tan overflow; inside - appears gray; rim - line of iron brown.

  Decoration: in metallic iron brown and dark cobalt blue, over white slip and under glaze.

  Inscription:suishu okan (green sleeve, gold crown)

  Signature: Kenzan Seisho

  Seal: Toin

• Signatures

  Kenzan Seisho

• Marks

  Seal: Toin

• Inscriptions

  suishu okan (green sleeve, gold crown)

  翠袖黃冠

  翠袖黃冠

• Label

  This bowl is decorated in the style introduced by the Kyoto potter Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743), who combined images and inscriptions in a manner more typical of a hanging scroll. A four-character Chinese-style inscription, from a poem on narcissus by the Southern Song neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi (1130–1200), reads “Green sleeves, gold crown.”

• Provenance

  To 1900

  Hayashi Tadamasa (1853-1906), Paris, to 1900 [1]

  From 1900 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Hayashi Tadamasa in 1900 [2]

  From 1920

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

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Pottery List, L. 781, 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.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Tea Bowls in Bloom: Botanical Decoration on Tea Ceremony Ceramics (February 3 to July 15, 2007)

  The Potter's Brush: The Kenzan Style in Japanese Ceramics (December 9, 2001 to October 27, 2002)

  Japanese Ceramics (April 11, 1978 to January 17, 1980)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Hayashi Tadamasa 林 忠正? (1853-1906) (C.L. Freer source)

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

• Origin

  Kyoto, Kyoto prefecture, Japan

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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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

  Freer, Charles Lang, Hayashi, Tadamasa

• Place

  Kyoto, Japan, Kyoto prefecture

• Topic

  Tea, Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Kyoto ware, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Ceramics, Narcissus

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)