Tea bowl with brushed-slip decoration

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.