Bowl, Cizhou-type ware

Bowl, deep; high foot. Gold lacquer and other repairs to rim and remains of repairs to numerous outside scars: cracks.
Clay: fine-grained grayish-white stoneware.
Glaze: transparent over cream and gray slips; somewhat milky or opacified where it has run down thick from rim on the outside; bare ring in center bottom; slips and glaze stop well short of foot; crackle inside.Slips are gray over cream on outside, cream inside.
Decoration: slips as above with evenly spaced circles of seven dots with one dot in center painted in cream slip on the gray outside. thin double lines in brown border lip on inside.

Historical period(s)
Ming dynasty, late 16th-early 17th century
Medium
Stoneware with brown and white slips and iron pigment under clear glaze
Style
Cizhou-type ware
Dimensions
H x Diam: 11 × 19.4 cm (4 5/16 × 7 5/8 in)
Geography
China, Hebei province, Pengcheng kilns
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Accession Number
F1898.467
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Bowl

Keywords
brown slip, China, Cizhou ware, iron pigment, Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644), stoneware, white slip
Provenance

To 1898
Yamanaka & Company, to 1898 [1]

From 1898 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Yamanaka & Company in 1898 [2]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] See Original Pottery List, L. 593, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. The majority of Charles Lang Freer’s purchases from Yamanaka & Company were made at its New York branch. Yamanaka & Company maintained branch offices, at various times, in Boston, Chicago, London, Peking, Shanghai, Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto. During the summer, the company also maintained seasonal locations in Newport, Bar Harbor, and Atlantic City.

[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.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919
Yamanaka and Co. (C.L. Freer source) 1917-1965

Description

Bowl, deep; high foot. Gold lacquer and other repairs to rim and remains of repairs to numerous outside scars: cracks.
Clay: fine-grained grayish-white stoneware.
Glaze: transparent over cream and gray slips; somewhat milky or opacified where it has run down thick from rim on the outside; bare ring in center bottom; slips and glaze stop well short of foot; crackle inside.Slips are gray over cream on outside, cream inside.
Decoration: slips as above with evenly spaced circles of seven dots with one dot in center painted in cream slip on the gray outside. thin double lines in brown border lip on inside.

Label

Large quantities of ceramics made at kilns in southern China, including Zhangzhou, were shipped to Japan in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Published References
  • Yuko Suzuki. Egorai - An Examination of Excavated Examples. vol. 5. pp. 50-77, fig. 4.
Collection Area(s)
Chinese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
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