Jar

Jar

"Interesting," noted Freer of this Parthian vessel. "Compare with similar specimens," he added in his inventory notes: And in the Peacock Room in Detroit, he put the suggestion into practice, placing this jar adjacent to four similar examples. Earthenware jars of this shape, typically covered with an alkaline glaze colored brown, green, or turquoise, are characteristic products from Mesopotamia during the Parthian period of the first through third century BCE. Freer acquired his Parthian wares from Dikran Kelekian, whose main gallery was located in Paris.

1st-3rd century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Earthenware with alkaline glaze

HxW: 26.3 x 20.5 cm

F1903.191

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50

North

Parthian period

Iraq

France

Paris

Vase

Vase

"Splendid" was the way that Freer described this cobalt blue glazed vase decorated with a barely discernible incised floral design. He believed it to be an ancient Chinese vessel from the Han dynasty. The first director of the Freer Gallery of Art, John Lodge, was unconvinced: "Don't know what this is," he confessed in an undated note. Most recently, scholars of ceramics have speculated that this vase may have been the product of a late nineteenth-century European art pottery studio, though the gold-lacquer repair on the foot indicates that it may have passed through Japan at some point. In any event, it was the mottled, brilliant blue color-and not the historical origins of the piece-that most interested Freer. In the Peacock Room in Detroit, he displayed it to the right of <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i>, surrounded by iridescent pieces of Raqqa ware.

19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with cobalt-blue salt glaze

HxW: 28.9 x 19.3 cm

F1902.35

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49

North

Japan or Europe

United States

New York

New York

Bottle

Bottle

Excavated in Syria and sold to Freer from the Paris gallery of Siegfried Bing in 1905, this flattened, short-necked bottle was described by the collector as "rare and very beautiful." The varied tones of discoloration on the surface and the abraded decoration, modeled in relief, were appealing to Freer, who discerned chromatic harmonies among his already-substantial collection of East Asian ceramics, his tonalist American paintings, and ravaged, but chromatically complex, vessels like this from the Near East. In Detroit, this bottle was prominently featured with a grouping of other Near Eastern wares, massed around Whistler's <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine.</i>

1st-2nd century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Siegfried Bing

Glazed clay

HxW: 30.9 x 24.5 cm

F1905.247a-b

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2

48

North

Syria

France

Paris

Jar

Jar

13th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

unknown

Stone-paste; painted under glaze

Raqq ware

HxW: 45.0 x 30.0 cm

F1902.191

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47

North

Syria

Jar

Jar

Dated to the Ming dynasty, this bluish-black glazed jar is chromatically complex, with areas of lighter tone and an iridescent surface. When Freer purchased it in 1897 from Yamanaka and Company, it was thought to be Japanese. Freer noted that it was "beautiful," and, in his inventory notes, observed, "interesting when seen in individual case; also very impressive shown with specimens of both Chinese and Japanese Temmoku" (the highly regarded dark-glazed tea wares first made at kilns in Fujian province in China and brought to Japan in the thirteenth century by Japanese Buddhist monks). In the Peacock Room, this jar was not, however, shown individually, but was grouped with a number of similarly dark colored East Asian vessels as well as an array of Raqqa ware from the Near East.

1368-1644

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with iron wash beneath iron glaze

HxW: 30.0 x 18.9 cm

F1897.6

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46

North

Ming dynasty

China

United States

New York

New York

Jar

Jar

The glaze and decoration on this Raqqa ware jar now dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century, is extremely discolored and the surface partially disintegrated. Its abraded greenish glaze, overpainted with luster in shades of brown and cobalt blue, were, however, the vessel's chief attraction for Freer. He described the jar "valuable" and "fine in color." In 1903, when he purchased this vessel from the Paris-based dealer Dikran Kelekian, Freer had only recently turned his attention to ancient and medieval glazed wares from the Near East. As the availability of Japanese art in Western markets began to decline, Kelekian, Siegfried Bing and other dealers looked to the arts of the Islamic world, where recent unofficial excavations had made ceramics and textiles available.

12th-13th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Stone-paste painted under glaze

HxW: 29.0 x 23.8 cm

F1903.189

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45

North

Syria

France

Paris

Jar

Jar

Earthenware jars of this shape, typically covered with an alkaline glaze colored brown, green, or turquoise, are characteristic products from Mesopotamia during the Parthian period of the first through third century BCE. The qualities Freer most admired were the subtle colors, textured surfaces, and iridescent decay of the glaze, which he felt resonated with the complex chromatic qualities of his American paintings, particularly those by James McNeill Whistler, Thomas Dewing, and Dwight Tryon.

1st-3rd century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Earthenware with alkaline glaze

HxW: 27.0 x 21.4 cm

F1902.192

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2

44

North

Parthian period

Iraq

France

Paris

Jar

Jar

According to the Paris-based dealer Dikran Kelekian, from whom Freer acquired it in 1903, this jar was excavated from a Persian tomb and was two thousand years old. Despite its advanced state of archaeological decay, the vessel, which is actually an example of Syrian Raqqa ware, dates to the medieval period&#151;the eleventh through the thirteenth century. For Freer, who had only begun to acquire Near Eastern ceramics in 1902, the iridescent, highly degraded turquoise glaze and the rough surface texture of this vessel was one of its chief attractions. He went on to amass a significant collection, many of which were prominently displayed in the Peacock Room in Detroit.

11th-12th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Stone-paste painted with glaze

HxW: 34.6 x 21.7 cm

F1903.227

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2

42

North

Syria

France

Paris

Jar

Jar

Described by Freer as "very beautiful," this jar was one of a number of Near Eastern ceramics and Egyptian antiquities shipped to him on approval by the Parisian art dealer Siegfried Bing. In 1904, when he purchased this vessel, Freer had only recently turned his attention to ancient and medieval glazed wares from the Near East. As the availability of Japanese art in Western markets began to decline, Bing and other dealers looked to the arts of the Islamic world, where recent unofficial excavations had made ceramics and textiles available. Raqqa ware was especially appealing to Freer, who discerned chromatic harmonies among his already-substantial collection of East Asian ceramics, his tonalist American paintings, and the iridescent turquoise- and green-glazed vessels from the Near East. He eventually amassed a substantial collection of Near Eastern ceramics. In Detroit, they were prominently featured throughout the Peacock Room, most notably massed around Whistler's <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i> and in the eye-level shelves along the west wall.

12th-13th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Siegfried Bing

Stone-paste painted under glaze

HxW: 28.0 x 22.2 cm

F1904.144

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2

42

North

Syria

France

Paris

Jar

Jar

Earthenware jars of this shape, typically covered with an alkaline glaze colored brown, green, or turquoise, are characteristic products from Mesopotamia during the Parthian period of the first through third century BCE. The qualities Freer most admired were the subtle colors, textured surfaces, and iridescent decay of the glaze, which he felt resonated with the complex chromatic qualities of his American paintings, particularly those by James McNeill Whistler, Thomas Dewing, and Dwight Tryon.

1st-3rd century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Earthenware with alkaline glaze

HxW: 27.4 x 19.9 cm

F1903.190

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41

North

Parthian period

Iraq

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

Tomb jar

Tomb jar

This tall slender tomb jar from the Southern Song dynasty is one of eight such elaborately decorated vessels that Freer displayed as pairs in the Peacock Room in Detroit. He purchased this example from the New York gallery of Yamanaka and Company, and he was told that it and other "specimens of this kind" had been "recovered from ancient Buddhist tombs" in Korea. While that was probably true, this particular jar is now known to be Chinese in origin and to date to the thirteenth century. Originally an accoutrement of burial in China as well as Korea, it would have been paired with another jar of the same shape, both of which would have held funeral offerings of grain meant to assist the deceased in the afterlife.

13th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Porcelain with bluish transparent (qingbai) glaze

Qingbai ware

HxW: 36.3 x 11.3 cm

F1904.321

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39

North

Southern Song dynasty

China

United States

New York

New York

Jar

Jar

Raqqa wares like this jar only began to appear on the art market at the turn of the last century, following the excavation of ancient and medieval pottery in northern Mesopotamia, near modern-day Mosul, and in the south, near Baghdad and along the Gulf. Freer was an early enthusiast, finding chromatic harmonies among his already substantial collection of East Asian ceramics, his tonalist American paintings, and these iridescent turquoise and green-glazed vessels from the Near East. He eventually amassed a substantial collection of Near Eastern ceramics. In Detroit, they were prominently featured throughout the Peacock Room, most notably massed around Whistler's <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i> and in the eye-level shelves along the west wall.

11th-12th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Stone-paste with degraded turquoise alkali-silicate glaze

HxW: 10.4 x 8.2 cm

F1905.286

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38

North

Raqqa

Syria

France

Paris

Jar (amphora) with two handles and an uneven foot

Jar

Raqqa wares like this jar only began to appear on the art market at the turn of the last century, following the excavation of ancient and medieval pottery in northern Mesopotamia, near modern-day Mosul, and in the south, near Baghdad and along the Gulf. Freer was an early enthusiast, finding chromatic harmonies among his already substantial collection of East Asian ceramics, the tonalism of his American paintings, and these iridescent turquoise- and green-glazed vessels from the Near East. He eventually amassed a substantial collection of Near Eastern ceramics. In Detroit, they were prominently featured throughout the Peacock Room, most notably massed around Whistler's <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i> and in the eye-level shelves along the west wall.

11th-12th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Stone-paste painted under glaze

HxW: 31.0 x 19.0 cm

F1904.51

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37

North

Syria

France

Paris

Jar

Jar

18th-19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

American Art Association

Stoneware with blue glaze

Yixing ware

HxWxD: 27.4 x 16.6 x 16.6 cm

F1905.51

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36

North

Qing dynasty

Yixing

China

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

Vase with crescent-moon and sun-shaped lugs

Vase

The sun and moon stand in relief as handles on this Edo-period Japanese stoneware vase. Freer purchased the vase from Tozo Takayanagi in 1902 and noted that the vessel was "very fine." He also noted his disagreement with Matsuki Bunkyo, one of his frequent art dealers and a sometime- adviser on purchases of Asian art and ceramics. "B. Matsuki says Tamba. I say Bizen," Freer wrote. Later scholars have agreed that it is not a Tamba piece, but have fallen short of verifying Freer's account. Its delicate proportions and workmanship, including its iron and ash glazes, suggest the Edo or Meiji period, likely from a kiln in the Fukuoka Prefecture of Japan, and associated with the historical region of the Buzen or Chikuzen Province. In the Peacock Room in Detroit, the vase stood on a shelf to the right of the room's focal point, <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine.</i>

1800-1880

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Tozo Takayanagi

Stoneware with iron and ash glazes

Possibly Agano or Takatori ware

HxW: 20.2 x 12.2 cm

F1902.96

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34

North

Edo period or Meiji era

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 bowl

Tea bowl (hirajawan)

This tea bowl, purchased in 1904 from Yamanaka and Company in New York, is made from fine-grained, buff clay with a pale greenish glaze. Its patina of brown stain on its bottom and lower sides&#151;the result of its use in the tea ceremony&#151;gives it a chromatic complexity that would have appealed to Freer, who displayed it with similar bowls on the mantel of the Peacock Room.

late 15th-early 16th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with ash glaze

Seto ware

HxWxD: 5.8 x 15.5 x 15.5 cm

F1904.327

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33

North

Muromachi period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Bowl

Bowl

Like many of the other tea bowls arranged on the mantel of the Peacock Room in 1908, this example, dating to the sixteenth century, was produced in Korea for a Japanese market. Freer found it, along with a number of similar examples, at the Fifth Avenue branch of Yamanaka and Company. Although many Western collectors of Asian ceramics favored highly decorated porcelains, Freer preferred the relatively simple forms and coarse textures of stoneware.

late 14th-early 15th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with wood-ash glaze

HxW: 7.8 x 17.0 cm

F1897.86

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32

North

Goryeo or Joseon period

Korea

United States

New York

New York

Tea bowl with brushed-slip decoration

Tea bowl

This Korean tea bowl with its cream colored glaze was purchased by Freer in 1897 from the New York branch of Yamanaka and Company, where he was a regular customer. That year, he purchased a number of similarly earth-toned bowls from the shop on Fifth Avenue. More than a decade later, he arrayed a number of them along the top of the mantel in the Peacock Room, just beneath Whistler's painting <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine.</i>

16th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with white slip under clear glaze

Buncheong ware

HxW: 7.8 x 18.3 cm

F1897.64

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31

North

Joseon period

Korea

United States

New York

New York

Tea bowl, Totoya type

Tea bowl

This comparatively large bowl with straight flaring sides dates to the sixteenth or seventeenth century and was probably made by a Korean potter working in the Karatsu area of Japan. (Karatsu had a long history as a port of trade with both Korean and China.) Freer purchased the piece from Yamanaka and Company in New York in 1898. Ten years later, he displayed it on the mantel of the Peacock Room with a number of other tea bowls acquired from the same dealer.

late 16th-early 17th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with brushed-slip decoration under feldspathic glaze

HxW: 7.0 x 17.0 cm

F1898.87

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30

North

Joseon period

Korea

United States

New York

New York

Tea bowl

Tea bowl

Waegwan (Wakan) kiln

In the late 1890s, Freer acquired a number of simple, earth-toned tea bowls from the New York branch of Yamanaka and Company, where the collector was a regular customer. He believed this bowl, with its gray yellow-brown glaze and fine dark crackle, was from Japan. Scholars have since debated its origins, wondering if it were perhaps from Korea, not Japan as Freer thought. The most recent thinking is that this bowl is indeed Korean, dating from the Joseon period in the seventeenth century.

17th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with ash glaze

Busan ware

HxW: 8.6 x 14.7 cm

F1898.461

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29

North

Joseon period

Busan

Korea

United States

New York

New York

Figure of a cat

Figure

In nineteenth-century Japan, the cat was an occasional companion of courtesans and, in art, suggestive of willfulness, stealth, and eroticism. In the Peacock Room, Freer placed this figure on the mantel alongside a number of earth-toned tea bowls and beneath Whistler's <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelain</i>, which depicts the Anglo-Greek beauty Christina Spartali in Japanese robes, surrounded by a variety of decorative objects from China and Japan.

19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Earthenware with iron pigment under clear lead glaze

Probably Kyoto ware

HxWxD: 2.9 x 5.5 x 3.4 cm

F1897.33

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28.1

North

Edo period or Meiji era

Probably Kyoto

Japan

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

Tea bowl

Tea bowl

The Englishman James Lord Bowes (1834-1899), who once owned this bowl, began collecting Japanese ceramics at the 1867 Paris Exposition. This piece was an anomaly in his collection, which tended toward elaborate enamel-decorated export wares from Satsuma, Kutani, and Kyoto. Its simplicity and crackled, greenish-brown glaze were, however, very much in keeping with Freer's taste. In 1908, Freer displayed it with an array of similar tea bowls on the mantel beneath Whistler's painting <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine.</i>

late 15th-early 16th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

R. Wagner

Stoneware with ash glaze

Mino or Seto ware

HxWxD: 6.6 x 16.4 x 16.4 cm

F1901.49

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28

North

Muromachi period

Japan

Germany

Berlin

Tea bowl

Tea bowl

Undae-ri kilns

Korean ceramics such as this small bowl reached Japan through international trade. Their arrival coincided with efforts by Japanese practitioners of the tea ceremony to replace formal Chinese ceramics with a more intimate assemblage of tea utensils. In Korea, this small bowl might have been used for serving pickles or other condiments; in Japan, however, it was used as for tea, as indicated by the ring of brown tea-stain around the rim. In the course of use, the overall coating of white slip turned to dark ivory. This alteration in appearance was an especially prized feature of the undecorated bowls. Their shape and surface qualities had a lasting impact on Japanese preferences in ceramics.

second half of 16th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with white slip under clear glaze

Buncheong ware, Undae-ri type

HxW: 5.7 x 12.8 cm

F1898.71

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27

North

Joseon period

Korea

United States

New York

New York

Jar

Jar

After Freer acquired this highly decayed and damaged Raqqa jar from the Parisian dealer Dikran Kelekian in 1904, he noted that "Kelekian believes that jars of this sort are of early Persian origin. Perhaps Babylonian." Raqqa wares like this jar only began to appear on the art market at the turn of the last century, following the excavation of ancient and medieval pottery in northern Mesopotamia, near modern-day Mosul, and in the south, near Baghdad and along the Gulf. Their cultural and chronological origins were not yet well understood. Even so, Freer was an early enthusiast, finding chromatic harmonies among his already substantial collection of East Asian ceramics, the tonalism of his American paintings, and these iridescent turquoise- and green-glazed vessels from the Near East. He eventually amassed a substantial collection of Near Eastern ceramics. In Detroit, they were prominently featured throughout the Peacock Room, most notably massed around Whistler's <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i> and in the eye-level shelves along the west wall.

11th-12th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Stone-paste painted with glaze

HxW: 32.8 x 20.1 cm

F1904.171

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26

North

Syria

France

Paris

Bottle with decoration of clouds and phoenixes

Bottle

When Freer loaned this bottle to an exhibition of East Asian ceramics at the Japan Society of New York in February 1914, it was thought to date to the Song dynasty. Like many of the ceramics that Freer purchased from the dealer Matsuki Bunkyo, this vessel has since been identified as dating to the Yuan dynasty. This was not necessarily because Matsuki was misrepresenting his goods; almost no one understood Yuan ceramics well until the 1950s. In the Peacock Room, the bottle was exhibited with other dark, glossy ceramics, some of which were similarly decorated with touches of gold pigment.

13th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Stoneware with dark glaze and traces of gold pigment

Jizhou ware

HxW: 26.4 x 15.5 cm

F1905.273

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25

North

Yuan dynasty

China

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

Tea-leaf storage jar

Tea-leaf storage jar (chatsubo)

This dramatic, glossy jar is glazed with a type called "pitch black" by the Japanese. Together with copper-green, cobalt-blue, and opaque white, it was popular for use on small tea-leaf storage jars such as this one, as well as on other still-smaller wares. The unusual depth of color - a feature that no doubt appealed to Freer, who regarded the vessel as "very fine" - was obtained by applying in two coats to a bisque-fired jar. Small glazed tea-leaf storage jars of this sort were probably intended mainly for use in shops selling tea, for storage and display. In the Peacock Room, however, it was placed on a high shelf, next to <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i> and near other dark, glossy ceramics.

second half of 19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Stoneware with "pitch black" glaze; thin iron glaze on interior

Shigaraki ware

HxW: 21.5 x 18.8 cm

F1898.435

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24

North

Edo period or Meiji era

Shigaraki

Japan

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

Sake bottle

Bottle (tokkuri)

Shidoro kilns

This was one of Freer's earliest Asian ceramics purchases. He acquired it in 1893 from Tozo Takayanagi and regarded it as "very fine." His colleague Edward Sylvester Morse, the Boston scholar and collector, disagreed, however: In 1921 he dismissed it as a modern piece and "not worth a damn." In the Peacock Room in Detroit, the bottle was displayed with other dark, glossy ceramics with rich, varied surfaces.

19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Tozo Takayanagi

Stoneware with ash and iron glazes

Shidoro ware

HxW: 27.5 x 14.8 cm

F1893.2

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2

22

North

Edo period or Meiji era

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Jar

Jar

Described by Freer as "an interesting specimen," this jar was one of a number of Near Eastern ceramics shipped to him on approval by the Parisian art dealer Dikran Kelekian. In 1903, when he purchased this vessel, Freer had only recently turned his attention to ancient and medieval glazed wares from the Near East. As the availability of Japanese art in Western markets began to decline, Kelekian and other dealers looked to the arts of the Islamic world, where recent unofficial excavations had made ceramics and textiles available. This vessel, which dates to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, was already ravaged by time, with a broken foot, a hole in one side, and yellow and brown discolorations all over the brilliant cream-colored glaze. Freer, however, regarded these imperfections as aesthetically distinctive, and because of this, Raqqa ware was especially appealing to Freer. He discerned chromatic harmonies among his already-substantial collection of East Asian ceramics, his tonalist American paintings, and the iridescent glazed vessels from the Near East. He eventually amassed a substantial collection of Near Eastern ceramics. In Detroit, they were prominently featured throughout the Peacock Room, most notably massed around Whistler's <i>La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine</i> and in the eye-level shelves along the west wall.

17th-18th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Dikran G. Kelekian

Stone-paste painted under glaze

HxW: 34.0 x 23.5 cm

F1903.188

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2

22

North

Syria

France

Paris

Bottle

Bottle

Jizhou kilns

The geographical origins of this bottle were not known to Freer, who purchased it from the Parisian dealer Siegfried Bing along with a number of other East Asian ceramics. Nevertheless, the collector described it as "very important" and suggested that it be exhibited occasionally by itself, as well with groupings of Temmoku wares. In the Peacock Room he placed it adjacent to earth-toned Japanese tea bowls, iridescent Raqqa ware, an antique Roman faience jar, and a Song dynasty tomb jar.

13th-14th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Siegfried Bing

Stoneware with iron glaze splashed with ash glaze

Jizhou ware

HxW: 34.2 x 19.4 cm

F1901.65

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2

21

North

Yuan dynasty

China

France

Paris