Bottle

The glassy green-white glaze on this Raqqa bottle is almost entirely covered by silvery areas of partial disintegration. The abraded surface and broken neck no deterrent to Freer, however, who purchased it from the Paris-based dealer Dikran Kelekian in the fall of 1905. As the availability of Japanese art in Western markets began to decline, Kelekian and other dealers looked to the arts of the Islamic world, where recent unofficial excavations had made ceramics and textiles available. Raqqa ware like this was especially appealing to Freer. He discerned chromatic harmonies among his already-substantial collection of East Asian ceramics, his tonalist American paintings, and the iridescent glazed vessels from the Near East.