Water jar with design of maple leaves

Tea ceremony freshwater jar (mizusashi) in style of Dutch earthenware. Globular jar, low foot set slightly inside base. Black lacquer cover.
Clay: medium gray stoneware.
Glaze: cream colored, crackled and somewhat stained.
Decoration: green network framing red, blue, black, and yellow leaves in overglaze enamels.
Signed Kenzan on base.

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Maker(s)
Artist: Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) Edo-Iriya Workshop
Historical period(s)
Edo period, ca. 1731-1743
Medium
Buff clay with white slip and iron pigment under transparent glaze, and enamels over glaze; lacquer additions to lost enamels; lacquered wooden lid
Dimensions
H x Diam: 14.2 Ɨ 15.9 cm (5 9/16 Ɨ 6 1/4 in)
Geography
Japan, Tokyo, Iriya
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art
Accession Number
F1904.358a-b
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Tea ceremony water jar (mizusashi)

Keywords
Edo period (1615 - 1868), Japan, tea, water
Provenance

To 1904
Michael Tomkinson (1841-1921), Kidderminster, England, to 1904 [1]

From 1904 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), given by Michael Tomkinson in 1904 [2]

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

Notes:

[1] See Original Pottery List, S.I. 385, 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.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Michael Tomkinson (C.L. Freer source) 1841-1921
Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919

Description

Tea ceremony freshwater jar (mizusashi) in style of Dutch earthenware. Globular jar, low foot set slightly inside base. Black lacquer cover.
Clay: medium gray stoneware.
Glaze: cream colored, crackled and somewhat stained.
Decoration: green network framing red, blue, black, and yellow leaves in overglaze enamels.
Signed Kenzan on base.

Label

The lacquer lid suggests that this piece was used as a water jar for the tea ceremony, although similar pieces, fitted with metal lids, were used as incense burners. The shape is exotic, recalling something nonindigenous such as Delft or even more so Italian Majolica ware. The decoration is in the Kenzan tradition, recalling camellia designs depicted in white against a green ground; this was a stock Kenzan-ware item in the second quarter of the eighteenth century.

Two similar pieces exist, another in the Freer collection (F1905.24) and one in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo.

Published References
  • Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections. 12 vols., Tokyo. vol. 10, pl. 204.
  • Warren E. Cox. The Book of Pottery and Porcelain. 2 vols., New York. vol. 1: p. 236, fig. 426.
  • Richard L. Wilson. The Potter's Brush: The Kenzan Style in Japanese Ceramics. Exh. cat. Washington. cat. 40, p. 116.
  • Jack Hobbs, Richard Salome, Ken Vieth. The Visual Experience., 3rd ed. Worcester, Massachusetts, 2004-2005. p. 369.
Collection Area(s)
Japanese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
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