Storage Jar

Object Details

• Description

  Very large glazed storage jar, dark brown stoneware with rounded body tapering to an almost flat base. The base is uneven and the jar does not sit perfectly flat. Green-gray glaze scattered over the upper body and shoulder, thicker in areas, with a large area of thick gray, overfired glaze on one side. Thick drips of glaze run down the body. Wide combed grooves are incised within a "panel" outlined by horizontal lines around the upper body and shoulder.

• Label

  Sturdy unglazed jars made in Bizen province (modern Okayama prefecture) had long been used in kitchens and storerooms. With the emerging popularity of the ritualized form of tea preparation called chanoyu, Bizen jars also came to the attention of urban connoisseurs, who used them to store tea. They also discerned—in the mottled coloration of the unglazed surface and the random deposits of wood ash—an austere beauty that they described as the jar’s “landscape.” This perception of the “landscapes” on jars from Bizen, as well as from Shigaraki, forms the first recorded aesthetic appreciation of unglazed stoneware, a preference

  that has remained central to Japanese taste in ceramics.

• Provenance

  To 1998

  Harry and Hideo G. Packard, Kyoto, purchased from an unidentified owner, to 1998 [1]

  From 1998

  Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from Hideo G. Packard in 1998

  Notes:

  [1] According to Curatorial Note 6 in the object record.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Hokusai: Japanese Screens (February 18 to July 29, 2012)

  Seasons: Japanese Screens (July 9, 2011 to January 22, 2012)

  Landscapes in Japanese Art (February 2 to July 15, 2007)

  Storage Jars of Asia (October 29, 2000 to March 10, 2002)

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

• Previous custodian or owner

  Harry Packard

  Hideo G. Packard

• Origin

  Bizen kilns, Imbe, Okayama prefecture, Japan

• Credit Line

  Purchase — funds provided by the Friends of Asian Arts

• 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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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1500s, 1400s

• Name

  Packard, Harry, Packard, Hideo G.

• Place

  Imbe, Japan, Bizen kilns, Okayama prefecture

• Topic

  Art, Muromachi period (1333 - 1573), Bizen ware, Stoneware, Japanese Art, Ceramics

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)