Record Small jar, adapted to use as a tea caddy | Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution

Small jar, adapted to use as a tea caddy

Medium:: Stoneware (unvitrified porcelain) with iron pigment under transparent glaze; gold lacquer repairs; ivory lid

Description:: Small jar, adapted to use as tea caddy. Ovoidal. Ivory cover. Lacquer repairs.; Clay: hard, dense, gray.; Glaze: luminous, creamy brown; finely crackled. Ash glaze.; Decoration: two whirling scrolls in brown, under glaze.

Label:: This small jar with rounded body and wide mouth is a utilitarian shape commonly made at regional kilns in Korea. Such vessels became popular in Japan as tea-ceremony utensils, either as tea bowls or, in small sizes like this jar, as containers for powdered tea. (The ivory lid was made in Japan).

Provenance:: To 1901; Rufus E. Moore, New York, NY, to 1901 [1]; From 1901 to 1919; Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Rufus E. Moore in 1901 [2]; From 1920; Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]; Notes:; [1] See Original Pottery List, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.; [2] See note 1.; [3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.