Cylindrical vase

Vase

Tsuboya kilns

19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with white slip and cobalt pigment under clear glaze

Tsuboya ware

HxW: 27.0 x 13.9 cm

F1899.8a-c

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2

215

West

Edo period

Naha city

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Bottle

Bottle

18th-19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

American Art Association

Stoneware with slip glaze and ash speckles

Bizen ware, Imbe type

HxW: 14.9 x 10.7 cm

F1905.31

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2

211

West

Edo period

Imbe

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Sake bottle with landscape decoration

Bottle (tokkuri)

Hiyamizu kiln

Freer acquired this Satsuma ware sake flask in 1905. Its delicate landscape design, attributed to Kano Tangen, a member of the Kano professional school of painters, reminded him of the very first Asian ceramic to enter his collection (F1892.26), and he considered it to be "by the same workman." Although Freer avoided the commercial versions of decorated Satsuma ware, made for sale at international expositions, he probably appreciated the parallels between this jar's refined decoration and the Japanese and American paintings he collected.

Decoration attributed to Kano Tangen

18th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

American Art Association

Stoneware with cobalt pigment under clear colorless glaze

Satsuma ware, White Satsuma type

HxWxD: 23.2 x 18.7 x 13.5 cm

F1905.41

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2

175

West

Edo period

Kagoshima

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Tea ceremony water jar

Tea ceremony water jar (mizusashi)

Higashi Sarayama kiln

1850-1868

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with ash and iron glazes; lacquered wooden lid

Takatori ware

HxWxD: 15.8 x 14.8 x 14.8 cm

F1898.486a-b

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2

173

West

Edo period

Fukuoka

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Vase in the form of an archaic Chinese cong

Vase

1700-1800

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with rice-straw ash and copper-green glazes

Agano or Shodai ware

HxW: 23.7 x 8.3 cm

F1897.53

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168

West

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Tea ceremony water jar

Tea ceremony water jar (mizusashi)

Mino kilns

first half of 17th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Tozo Takayanagi

Stoneware with ash and iron glazes

Mino ware, Ofuke type

HxWxD: 18.4 x 18.6 x 18.6 cm

F1893.3a-b

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162

West

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Bottle

Bottle

Hiyamizu kiln

Freer, who did not care for porcelain, admired the warmer appearance of white or cream stoneware from the Satsuma kilns in southern Japan. This hexagonal bottle was Freer's first acquisition of an Asian ceramic. The bottle bears scenes of fishermen along a river—a "Whistlerian landscape," as Freer described it in his inventory notes. Although Freer avoided the commercial versions of decorated Satsuma ware, made for sale at international expositions, he probably appreciated the parallels between this jar's refined decoration and the Japanese and American paintings he collected. In 1905, Freer acquired another sake flask of Satsuma ware (F1905.41), which was decorated so similarly to his first Japanese ceramic piece that Freer considered it to be "by the same workman."

Decoration attributed to Kano Tangen

18th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Tozo Takayanagi

Stoneware with cobalt pigment under clear glaze

Satsuma ware, White Satsuma type

HxW: 21.8 x 17.8 cm

F1892.26

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2

162

West

Edo period

Kagoshima

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Vase

Vase

Ryumonji kilns

18th-19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Stoneware with iron and rice-straw-ash glazes; red lacquer repairs.

Satsuma ware, Ryumonji kilns

HxW: 24.0 x 10.9 cm

F1901.24

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161

West

Edo period

Kajiki town

Japan

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

Sake bottle

Bottle (tokkuri)

19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Stoneware with iron slip and rice-straw ash glaze

Seba ware

HxWxD: 21.8 x 13.2 x 13.2 cm

F1899.45

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2

144

West

Edo period

Japan

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

Sake bottle with design of floral sprays

Bottle

Hiyamizu kiln

1660-1700

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with cobalt decoration under clear glaze

Karatsu ware or Satsuma ware, White Satsuma type

HxW: 22.5 x 16.3 cm

F1903.78

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141

West

Edo period

Kagoshima

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Sake bottle

Bottle (tokkuri)

18th-19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with ash glaze

Mino or Inuyama ware

HxWxD: 24.4 x 17.1 x 17.1 cm

F1898.484

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2

140

West

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Bottle with inlaid design of orchids

Bottle

This Edo period bottle, which Freer purchased in New York from Yamanaka and Company, features a freehand spray of leaves along with a more formalized "rope-curtain" collar along the neck. In the Peacock Room in Detroit, it was exhibited with other dark, glossy ceramics, some of which were decorated with touches of gold pigment.

Agano Yaguma (1795-1871)

1830-1860

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with white slip inlaid under clear glaze

Yatsushiro ware

HxWxD: 22.8 x 15.2 x 15.2 cm

F1898.140

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139

South

Edo period

Yatsushiro

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Bottle

Bottle

Takeo Karatsu kilns

1640-1700

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with white slip under clear glaze

Karatsu ware, Takeo Karatsu type

HxW: 38.9 x 33.7 cm

F1898.17

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138

West

Edo period

Takeo

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Tea-leaf storage jar

Tea-leaf storage jar (chatsubo)

A pair of glazes applied to the stoneware of this late seventeenth-century Edo jar gives two unique and striking effects. A thick, mottled olive green ash glaze (called ameyu in Japan) produces purple splashes that flow randomly from the jar's shoulder on one side. An all-over coating of iron-slip glaze (called akadobe) creates a golden-dimpled appearance on another side of the tea-leaf storage jar, or chatsubo. In his object notes about the jar, which he purchased from Yamanaka and Company in 1899, Freer described the vessel as "Good. Not very fine."

late 17th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with slip glaze and ash glaze

Tamba ware

HxW: 29.1 x 24.2 cm

F1899.9

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133

West

Edo period

Tachiku

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Bottle

Bottle

"This jar," Freer commented in an undated inventory note, "was found in Corea [sic] and was originally supposed to have been made in that country; I believe it, however, to be Chinese made during the Sung dynasty." The piece was purchased from the Boston-based dealer Matsuki Bunkyo, and it is now believed to be an Edo-period piece from Japan. In the Peacock Room, Freer placed it alongside other similarly large vessels, on the tall shelves surrounding the gilded peacock shutters.

18th-19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Stoneware with white slip under clear glaze

HxW: 30.9 x 26.3 cm

F1900.63

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77

East

Edo period

Japan

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

Jar

Jar

Now dated to the nineteenth century, this jar, with extensive red lacquer repairs, came to Freer from Paris-based dealer Siegfried Bing. He believed it to be a Korean antique, while the ceramics expert Edward Sylvester Morse although it was Tamba ware from Japan. Both men regarded this as an "important specimen," as Freer described it; Morse echoed this sentiment: "Very extraordinary specimen," he noted in 1921. The piece has puzzled subsequent scholars, who have been uncertain about its geographic origins, but sure that it was not the ancient vessel that Freer and his contemporaries believed it to be. It may be an example of a fake antique, produced specifically for an international market.

19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Siegfried Bing

Stoneware with white slip under clear glaze; lacquer repairs

Possibly Buncheong ware

HxW: 45.4 x 26.4 cm

F1904.147

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75

East

Joseon period, Edo period, or Meiji era

Korea or Japan

France

Paris

Vase with design of peonies

Vase

Grotesque head loop handles appear on either side of this grayish beaker-shaped flower vase of the Edo period (1700-1820). Freer purchased the stoneware vase, which bears a design of peonies, from a customary dealer, Matsuki Bunkyo, in 1900. The vase had previously belonged to Ikeda Seisuke, a noted Kyoto dealer. In his object notes, Freer referred to "the elder Ikeda of Kioto [sic], who showed me the jar during one of my early trips to Japan." This vase is decidedly less subtle in its form and decoration than most of the ceramics that Freer collected, suggesting that sentimental memories of his first visit to Japan in 1895 may have influenced his purchase of the piece when it was offered by Matsuki some five years later.

1700-1820

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Stoneware with cobalt decoration under translucent glaze

Satsuma ware

HxW: 31.6 x 28.8 cm

F1900.66a-b

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70

East

Edo period

Japan

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

Vase

Vase

Although this vase is now thought to be from Edo period Japan, Freer, who described it as "very fine," believed it to be either Korean or thirteenth-century Chinese. He purchased it from the New York store of Yamanaka and Company, and likely compared its landscape design to Japanese ink paintings and to similarly abbreviated views of nature by James McNeill Whistler.

probably 19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with white slip and iron decoration under clear glaze

HxW: 24.0 x 17.1 cm

F1903.234

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62

East

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Bottle

Bottle

This Edo period stoneware bottle, with a lustrous brown glaze and crackled, grayish-white overflow, was one of a number of Japanese ceramics that Freer purchased from Yamanaka and Company in 1898. A decade later, he displayed it in the Peacock Room on one of the high shelves to the right of <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine.</i>

1790-1850

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with iron and rice-straw-ash glazes

Agano or Takatori ware

HxW: 27.8 x 13.1 cm

F1898.453

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58

East

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Vase

Vase

This jar, glazed greenish gray color with areas of violet-gray and a crackled surface, was believed to be Persian when Freer purchased it in 1902 from Dikran Kelekian. It is now known to be East Asian in origin, although it remains uncertain if it is Chinese or Japanese. In the Peacock Room in Detroit, Freer displayed it alongside other similarly toned ceramics from China, Japan, and Syria.

18th-19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Stoneware with opaque celadon glaze

HxW: 29.1 x 23.1 cm

F1902.8

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57

North

Qing dynasty, Edo period, or Meiji era

China or Japan

France

Paris

Jar

Jar

This Japanese stoneware jar, with a mottled gray glaze and drips of purple overflow, was one of the earliest Asian ceramics acquired by Freer. He bought it in 1892 from the New York-based Japanese dealer Tozo Takayanagi, from whom he had also purchased, in the same year, a Japanese painted fan. Freer subsequently turned to Yamanka and Company, another purveyor of Japanese art located on Fifth Avenue, for many of his ceramics purchases. In 1892, however, Tozo seemed to be enjoying a particularly good year. The periodical <i>The Collector</i> noted in its August issue: "Mr. Tozo Takayanagi announces the removal of his Art Rooms to 160 Fifth Avenue. His collection is now especially rich in the finest possible specimens of Japanese bronze, shakudo, porcelain and the like, most of them of an especially valuable decorative character" (see "Forecasts of the Fall Season," <i>The Collector</i> 3:18 (Aug. 15, 1892): 275).

1750-1810

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Tozo Takayanagi

Stoneware with rice-straw ash glaze and trails of wood-ash glaze

Agano ware

HxW: 24.3 x 19.6 cm

F1892.30

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40

North

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Sake bottle

Bottle (tokkuri)

This long-necked sake bottle from the Edo period was purchased by Freer as part of a larger collection, the Waggaman Collection of 1905. Its previous owner, Thomas A. Waggaman, was among the founders of Catholic University in Washington, DC. On February 2, 1905, a <i>New York Times</i> article referred to sale of the Waggaman Collection and mentioned Freer as one of the purchasers, along with the author, O. Henry. This pear-shaped vessel is sometimes referred to as a "crane's neck bottle" because of its unique opening. Its coloration is dark brown, and the glaze of its clay body is flecked with an ochre yellow finish-almost as if it were sprinkled with pure gold.

1650-1710

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

American Art Association

Stoneware with iron glaze; silver rim

Karatsu ware

HxW: 23.5 x 13.4 cm

F1905.48

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35

North

Edo period

Taku

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Incense container with Chinese lion-dog on lid

Incense box (kogo)

Freer purchased this Edo period incense container from the sale of the Samuel Colman collection just after the turn of the twentieth century. Colman (1832-1920) was an early collector of "Oriental art" in America: in 1880, a number of his pieces, including Chinese porcelain and a Japanese suit of armor, were displayed at the Ortgies Gallery in New York City. The open-mouthed lion may have been derived from a similar motif on a style of Ming dynasty Chinese bronze incense burner (with the lion's mouth serving as smoke vent). In the Peacock Room, this piece was on the far right end of the mantel; an earthenware cat (F1897.33) was placed on the far left. Between these two animal figures Freer arrayed a number of simple tea bowls in varying shade of brown.

19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

American Art Association

Raku-type earthenware with red slip under clear lead glaze; partial gilding

Raku ware, unknown workshop

HxWxD: 5.2 x 5.2 x 4.3 cm

F1902.63a-b

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33.1

North

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Tea-leaf storage jar with five lugs

Jar

This seventeenth-century tea-leaf storage jar came to Freer through the New York branch of Yamanaka and Company, one of his favorite sources for East Asian ceramics. This jar, with its blue-green copper-based glaze, appears in the Peacock Room in Detroit on a shelf near <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i>, where it was grouped with a diverse array of East and West Asian pots, including Southern Song tomb jars, Japanese tea wares, and iridescent Raqqa ware.

1630-1660

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with copper-tinted rice-straw-ash glaze and feldspathic glaze

Karatsu ware, Takeo Karatsu type

HxW: 25.4 x 21.4 cm

F1899.60

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19

North

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Tea-ceremony water jar

Tea ceremony water jar (hitoeguchi mizusashi)

The simple bucket shape of this early seventeenth-century Japanese lidded jar disguises the intricate workmanship which produced it. In Japanese, the shape is known as <i>hitoe-guchi</i>, literally, "plain rim," and it began to be made in the sixteenth century, probably from a Chinese bronze prototype. The shape is so versatile that it became a classic pottery model that continued to be produced at Seto kilns throughout the Edo period. Although this pottery was thrown on a wheel, the throwing marks are unobtrusive, a mark of quality craftsmanship. The finishing technique involved hand-trimming or carving, after which several glazes were applied to produce a richly mottled surface, as was customary of Chinese ceramics. The thin lacquered wooden lid overhangs the rim slightly and accentuates the vessel's elegant shape. When Edward Sylvester Morse, the nineteenth-century Boston scholar and collector, first encountered this water jar in Freer's collection, he is said to have exclaimed, "My God, that's great. Wonderful things&#151;ripping&#151;a corker."

early 17th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with iron and ash glazes; lacquered wooden lid

Seto ware

HxWxD: 16.3 x 20.4 x 20.4 cm

F1898.454a-b

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17

North

Edo period

Seto

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Tea bowl

Tea bowl

Freer purchased this Japanese tea bowl from the New York branch of Yamanaka and Company, whose Fifth Avenue shop was an important source of Japanese and Chinese art for many American collectors at the turn of the century. This piece was one of more than twenty-five tea bowls that Freer acquired from Yamanaka in 1897. He displayed several of them in the Peacock Room in Detroit, where he organized them alongside Whistler's painting <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine.</i>

18th-19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with ash glaze

Possibly Hagi ware

HxW: 10.4 x 11.6 cm

F1897.68

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15

North

Edo period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Vase

Vase

Ryumonji kilns

Described by Freer as "rare, but not beautiful," this Satsuma-ware vase was purchased from the Boston-based Japanese dealer Matsuki Bunkyo. Its distinctive "frog skin" glaze, created by applying successive layers of dark and light glazes, was developed at the Genryuin (or Nishi Mochida) kiln, which operated between 1667 and 1746. In the Peacock Room in Detroit, it was displayed alongside a number of other vessels with dark, complex glazes and mottled surfaces.

17th-18th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Stoneware with iron and ash glazes

Satsuma ware, Ryumonji kilns

HxW: 25.4 x 11.3 cm

F1902.216

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14

North

Edo period

Kajiki

Japan

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

Sake flask

Sake flask (heishi)

Ryumonji kilns

This Satsuma ware vessel was probably made as a ceremonial sake flask for use in a Shinto shrine, where it would have been part of a matched pair. Describing it for the catalogue to a 1914 exhibition held at the Japan Society in New York, Edward Sylvester Morse, who thought the vase was "ripping," remarked on the "variable purplish brown" glaze overlaid with a "thin mirror-glaze of rich black mingling with one of powdered tea color, these being allowed to run in rills or streamlets of greater or less length down the body." The fine-grained, purplish "iron sand" glaze seems to have been a specialty of Satsuma kilns, but in this case, the glaze effects were in fact the result of more accident and less intent than Morse understood. <p>Freer had described the jar with similar enthusiasm, noting that it was "very fine." In his notes on the design and layout of the museum in Washington, he suggested that it should be exhibited in an individual case. In the Peacock Room in Detroit, however, he placed it on what is now the north wall, just to the left of the <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i> and adjacent to a number of other similarly dark, monochromatic vessels from China and Japan.

17th-18th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

R. E. Moore

Stoneware with iron glazes

Satsuma ware, Ryumonji kilns

HxWxD: 37.5 x 21.2 x 21.2 cm

F1896.34

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13

North

Edo period

Kajiki town

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Vase with drum-shaped body and elephant head handles

Vase

Freer bought this vase at an American Art Association auction in 1905, where it was offered as part of the sale of the Thomas A. Waggaman collection. (Waggaman, a resident of Washington, D.C. and one of the founders of that city's Catholic University, had opened a private gallery in his Georgetown home in 1888, proposing to charge admission and dedicate the income to the Catholic church). This drum-shaped vase, which dates to the early Edo period, is based on Chinese ceramic prototypes, reflecting the interest in classical Chinese tea wares in seventeenth-century Japan. Freer was especially proud of this piece, and he loaned it to a 1914 exhibition at the Japan Society in New York, where it attracted the attention of Edward Sylvester Morse, whose own collection of Japanese ceramics was destined for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Morse singled out this vase among other Japanese ceramics shown at the 1914 exhibition as being "unique" for its "soft, enticing gold and silver iridescence," which he thought&#151;erroneously&#151;was the result of actual application of silver oxide. He mused: "The curious surface has in places the appearance of the mottled patina and lucent incrustations attaching to bronzes inhumed not too long and subsequently freely handled and caressed." The lambent surface was especially attractive to Freer, whose collection of American paintings exhibited similarly complex surface beauties.

17th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

American Art Association

Stoneware with slip

Bizen ware, Imbe type

HxW: 19.6 x 13.2 cm

F1905.32

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2

10

North

Edo period

Imbe

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Flat-sided sake flask

Bottle

Nishi Sarayama kiln

Freer acquired this "very fine" flat- sided flask from Y. Fujita and Company in 1903. An example of Japanese Takatori ware (pottery made in the Fukuoka Prefecture), it dates to the Edo period. This flask was likely used for tea ceremonies, in keeping with the tea bowls and caddies that are also associated with Takatori ware. This vessel's precise light grey finish was likely achieved by glazing the clay with iron in the kiln. In the Peacock Room, Freer grouped it with a rather varied array of East Asian ceramics, including a number of similarly dark glazed specimens.

mid 19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Y. Fujita and Company

Stoneware with iron glaze

Takatori ware

HxW: 20.6 x 14.6 cm

F1903.55

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2

5

North

Edo period

Japan

Japan

Kyoto