Jar, cut down in Japan for use as tea-ceremony water jar

In its original form this jar was half again as tall and bore four lugs on its shoulders beneath a narrow mouth. Jars of this type are excavated in Japan. The reason for the careful removal of the (presumably) broken top of this jar and grinding down of the shoulder to make a smooth edge is explained by the similar treatment of a Cizhou ware bottle now in the Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya, repository for the collection of the Owari Tokugawa warrior house. That bottle, of similar shape, has been ground down at the same level around the shoulder, and Tokugawa storeroom records from the first half of the nineteenth century describe the piece as a mizusashi (freshwater jar for use in the tea ceremony). A narrow mizusashi is required for use in tea gatherings of the tenth month. Fitted with a lacquered wooden lid, a damaged Chinese bottle could be cleverly salvaged for that purpose.