Stoneware with white slip and cobalt decoration under greenish transparent glaze
Dimensions:
H x Diam: 8.5 × 13.1 cm (3 3/8 × 5 3/16 in)
Style:
Arita ware, totai sometsuke type
Type:
Vessel
Origin:
possibly Chokichidani kiln, Arita, Saga prefecture, Japan
Date:
1660-1680
Period:
Edo period
Description:
Tea bowl with ovoidal base and cylindrical upper part; high foot outside, shallowly scooped out underneath.
Clay: coarse stoneware fired reddish-brown.
Glaze: greenish gray, crackled, stained.
Decoration: floral patterns in underglaze blue outside.
Label:
This bowl is a rare type of stoneware tea ceramic made at the Arita kilns, better known for porcelain tableware. The bowl approximates porcelain whiteness using Korean-style brushed white clay solution (slip) and uses Chinese-style cobalt-blue decoration. The thin form also shows the impact of the porcelain aesthetic. Although Freer did not care for porcelain, he was attracted to the subtle coloration of this bowl, which he praised as "fine."
Provenance:
To 1901
Bunkio Matsuki (1867-1940), Boston, to 1901 [1]
From 1901 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Bunkio Matsuki in 1901 [2]
From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [2]
Notes:
[1]
See Pottery List, L. 1063, 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.
Collection:
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Exhibition History:
Cornucopia: Ceramics of Southern Japan (December 19, 2009 to January 9, 2011)
Freer and Tea: 100 Years of The Book of Tea (November 19, 2005 to May 29, 2006)
Japanese and Korean Pottery, and Korean Bronze (May 2, 1923 to March 22, 1943)
