Shigaraki ware wide-mouthed jar
Object Details
- Description
- Large vat (kame). Gold lacquer repairs.
- Clay: soft, dense, buff. Stoneware.
- Glaze: mingled gray, greenish-gray, and pinkish-cream; splash of deep green-blue. Overbaked. Interior glazed with (copper) green lead glaze, spilling over rim and shoulder. Traces of purple and brown lead glazes. Base glazed.
- Label
- Underneath the unusual glazes lies a perfectly typical Shigaraki vat. Glazed in this manner, however, it suggests a potter's experimentation with the use of ornamental glazes, perhaps in an effort typical of the early Meiji era to develop a novel product with appeal for the export market. The interior is completely coated with copper-green lead glaze: some of the green glaze ran down onto the shoulder of the jar. The glaze around the rim is badly worn, but the remaining glaze seems to include patches of purple and brown as well as green. The extensive wear to the rim suggests that the jar might have been used in a retail tea shop as a container for tea, with a wooden or metal lid. Tea shops typically displayed a matching set of jars holding different types of tea, which were sold by measure.
- Provenance
- To 1905
- Yamanaka & Company, New York, NY, to 1905 [1]
- From 1905 to 1919
- Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Yamanaka & Company, New York, NY, in 1905 [2]
- From 1920
- Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]
- Notes:
- [1] See Original Pottery List, L. 1384, 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
- Rinpa Screens (February 25, 2023 to February 24, 2024)
- Previous custodian or owner
- Yamanaka and Co. 山中商会 (1917-1965) (C.L. Freer source)
- Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Data Source
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
- Date
- 19th century
- Period
- Edo period or Meiji era
- Accession Number
- F1905.86
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Vessel
- Medium
- Stoneware with white, copper-green, and manganese-purple lead-silicate glazes; gold lacquer repairs
- Dimensions
- H x Diam: 38.5 × 32.3 cm (15 3/16 × 12 11/16 in)
- Style
- Shigaraki ware
- Origin
- Shigaraki, Shiga prefecture, Japan
- Related Online Resources
- Google Cultural Institute
- See more items in
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
- Topic
- lacquer
- ceramic
- Shigaraki ware
- Edo period (1615 - 1868)
- Meiji era (1868 - 1912)
- Japan
- stoneware
- Japanese Art
- lacquer repair
- Charles Lang Freer collection
- Record ID
- fsg_F1905.86
