Freer bought this late Ming or early Qing dynasty jar from the New York branch of Yamanaka and Company, where he was a regular customer. At the time, Freer believed that it was an Edo-period piece of Imari ware from Japan. Describing it in his notes as "extraordinary," he placed it between two Satsuma ware bottles, each decorated with a landscape design in subtle shades of blue. He may have discerned a chromatic relationship between those two vessels and this rough porcelain jar, with its cobalt decoration of floral vine scrolls. The jar's rim formation shows that it was made in imitation of Chinese pewter containers for storing green leaf tea and fitted with a flat inner lid and cylindrical outer lid that would have just covered the unglazed area of the neck. By the time Freer acquired the jar, however, the lost double lid had been replaced with a carved wooden cover of the sort used on Chinese ginger jars displayed in Western parlors and dining rooms at the turn of the century.

Jar

16th-17th century

Ming or Qing dynasty

Porcelain with cobalt decoration under clear glaze

HxW: 15.1 x 15.2 cm

China

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

169

West

Jar

F1902.240a-d

Yamanaka and Co.

New York

New York

United States

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Freer and his contemporaries regarded this as an example of Jun ware, which was produced in Henan province of China from the Song dynasty (960-1279) through the fifteenth century. Jun ware is characterized by its distinctive glazes, which range from greenish-blue to lavender and lavender-blue with violet splashes or marks. This dish is actually a later example of a Jun-style glaze. In the Peacock Room, which Freer called "the blue room," it was one of more than forty Jun or similarly blue-glazed ceramics displayed along the south wall, just beneath Whistler's allegorical mural of two battling peacocks.

Dish

Shiwan (Shekwan) or Yixing ware

17th century

Ming or Qing dynasty

Stoneware with Jun-style glaze

HxW: 4.7 x 21.8 cm

China

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

96

South

Dish with molded decoration

F1905.306

Yamanaka and Co.

New York

New York

United States

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A rich blue enamel glaze, with areas of green, characterizes this Ming or Qing dynasty Chinese porcelain vase. It was purchased in Japan in 1907 - one of the few ceramics purchases that Freer made during his travels there. Back home in Detroit, the collector noted to himself: "Learn period. Is it Ming or later?" In Detroit, he displayed it with a number of Jun or Jun-style wares, creating a harmony in blue to complement Whistler's interior decorations, which Freer referred to as "the Blue Room."

Vase

mid 17th-19th century

Ming or Qing dynasty

Porcelain with enamel glaze

HxW: 24.5 x 9.6 cm

China

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

89

South

Vase

F1907.74

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When Freer purchased this unglazed bodhisattva figure from Yamanaka and Company in 1905, he noted on the invoice, "It is said the maker was a Chinese priest and that he presented it to a Japanese temple in the 16th century." Yamanaka had acquired the piece from the Thomas Waggaman sale, where it was part of a long run of "miscellaneous" Japanese ceramics. Later, in his inventory notes, Freer seemed to reject his earlier idea about the figure and commented, "We have no record of the age or place of manufacture of this specimen. It is, however, Chinese and I fancy not later than early Ming." The date of this piece remains a mystery: it is attributed to the Ming or Qing dynasty, dating to the fifteenth through the nineteenth century.

Figure

15th-19th century

Ming or Qing dynasty

Earthenware with white slip and traces of red, green and black pigment

HxWxD: 32.2 x 15.5 x 11.5 cm

China

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

2

87

South

Figure of a bodhisattva

F1905.30

Yamanaka and Co.

New York

New York

United States

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