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-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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22

North

Edo period or Meiji era

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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2

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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2

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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10

North

Edo period

Imbe

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Tea bowl

Tea bowl

This shallow, amber-glazed tea bowl is dated to the third quarter of the sixteenth century Muromachi or Momoyama period, and is associated with the historic <i>ogama</i> production phases of the Mino kilns of Japan. At the time of production, iron was added to the ash glaze to enrich its coloration; over time, dregs of tea stained the bowl, giving it an even warmer finish. Freer purchased this bowl in 1898, on New York's Fifth Avenue, from Yamanaka and Company, noting that it was "extremely rare-very early." The shape of this tea bowl is termed <i>hirawan</i> and the vessel would traditionally be placed on a lacquer stand. In the Peacock Room in Detroit, however, it appeared on a shelf to the left of <i>La Princesse du Pays de la porcelaine.</i>

third quarter 16th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Yamanaka and Co.

Stoneware with iron slip under ash glaze; gold lacquer repairs

Mino ware

HxWxD: 5.7 x 15.9 x 15.9 cm

F1898.465

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9

North

Muromachi or Momoyama period

Japan

United States

New York

New York

Tea ceremony narrow water jar, with black lacquer lid

Tea ceremony water jar (hosomizusashi)

Imitation of Ogata Kenzan

late 19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Siegfried Bing

Clay; black and transparent lead glazes; lacquered wooden lid

Raku ware, unknown workshop

HxWxD: 23.3 x 13.3 x 13.3 cm

F1901.61a-b

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8

North

Meiji era

Kyoto

Japan

France

Paris

Vase with incised design of crane and maple leaves

Vase (hanaike)

This cylindrical Raku-type vase was procured for Freer by the dealer Matsuki Bunkyo, who enclosed with it a rather lengthy letter in February of 1903. In the letter he refers to several of the vessel's unique characteristics, including the "deep mysterious quality" of the black finish, as well as the height of the vase, which is "unusually tall." Matsuki thought it was "extraordinary," but upon receiving this purchase, Freer noted it as "coarsely modeled." It was falsely signed by the Japanese master Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637), and it is now more accurately attributed to the School of Koetsu. Even so, this vessel is considered to be a <i>hanaike</i>, a type of cultural production designated by the Japanese as a National Treasure because of its historical or artistic significance.

False signature of Hon'ami Koetsu

19th century

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Matsuki Bunkyo

Raku-type earthenware with Black Raku glaze

HxW: 25.7 x 10.7 cm

F1903.45

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7

North

Edo period or Meiji era

Kyoto

Japan

United States

Boston

Massachusetts

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