Vase

This melon-shaped Ch'ing-pai ware vase has a brilliant white porcelain body that is tinted with an almost transparent blue glaze. It was purchased by Freer in 1907 as part of a group acquisition from a fellow collector, Horace Allen, who had amassed a significant group of ceramics during his time as a missionary in Korea. Of his vase, Allen had written "It is pronounced by those collectors who have seen it to be the finest piece of white Korai they have seen." He declared it "perfect," and Freer may have agreed, selecting it to be among the ceramics on prominent view in the Peacock Room. The origins of this piece, though once believed to be Korean, are now known to be eleventh-century Chinese, from the Northern Song dynasty.