Jar

19th century

Joseon period

Porcelain with ash glaze; lacquered wooden lid

HxW: 21.7 x 26.3 cm

Korea

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

142

West

Jar

F1898.1a-c

Yamanaka and Co.

New York

New York

United States

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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.

Jar

Possibly Buncheong ware

19th century

Joseon period, Edo period, or Meiji era

Stoneware with white slip under clear glaze; lacquer repairs

HxW: 45.4 x 26.4 cm

Korea or Japan

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

75

East

Jar

F1904.147

Siegfried Bing

Paris

France

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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 La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine.

Tea bowl

Buncheong ware

16th century

Joseon period

Stoneware with white slip under clear glaze

HxW: 7.8 x 18.3 cm

Korea

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

31

North

Tea bowl with brushed-slip decoration

F1897.64

Yamanaka and Co.

New York

New York

United States

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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.

Tea bowl

late 16th-early 17th century

Joseon period

Stoneware with brushed-slip decoration under feldspathic glaze

HxW: 7.0 x 17.0 cm

Korea

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

30

North

Tea bowl, Totoya type

F1898.87

Yamanaka and Co.

New York

New York

United States

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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.

Tea bowl

Busan ware

17th century

Joseon period

Stoneware with ash glaze

HxW: 8.6 x 14.7 cm

Waegwan (Wakan) kiln

Busan

Korea

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

29

North

Tea bowl

F1898.461

Yamanaka and Co.

New York

New York

United States

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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.

Tea bowl

Buncheong ware, Undae-ri type

second half of 16th century

Joseon period

Stoneware with white slip under clear glaze

HxW: 5.7 x 12.8 cm

Undae-ri kilns

Korea

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

27

North

Tea bowl

F1898.71

Yamanaka and Co.

New York

New York

United States

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