Serving bowl with mishima style decoration

Tea-bowl, large flaring-ovoidal; bold foot.
Clay: dense, gray.
Glaze: dark-gray and thin white, over dark brown wash.
Decoration: inlaid in white paste, under glaze.
Mark

Maker(s)
Artist: Kiyomizu Rokubei II (1777-1847)
Historical period(s)
Edo period, early 19th century
Medium
Stoneware with white slip inlaid under feldspathic glaze
Dimensions
H x Diam: 7.4 x 18.7 cm (2 15/16 x 7 3/8 in)
Geography
Japan, Kyoto prefecture, Kyoto, Gojozaka
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Accession Number
F1906.30
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Serving bowl (hachi)

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

To 1906
Mr. D. J. Ushikubo, New York, NY, to 1906 [1]

From 1906 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), given by Mr. D. J. Ushikubo in 1906 [2]

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

Notes:

[1] See Original Pottery List, L. 470, 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)

D. J. Ushikubo (C.L. Freer source)
Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919

Description

Tea-bowl, large flaring-ovoidal; bold foot.
Clay: dense, gray.
Glaze: dark-gray and thin white, over dark brown wash.
Decoration: inlaid in white paste, under glaze.
Mark

Marking(s)

Mark

Label

Kiyomizu Rokubei II was head of his family's ceramic workshop in Kyoto from 1811 to 1838. For this vessel, he adhered closely to the orthodox Korean bowl shape of the fifteenth-sixteenth century and the technique of inlaid decoration, known in Japan as mishima, probably working from an actual model. Kyoto workmanship is discernible in the variety of leaf-and-flower shaped stamps and in the well-fused semi-matte glaze. Rokubei's hexagonal seal is impressed near the foot.

Published References
  • Louise Allison Cort. Korean Influences in Japanese Ceramics. vol. 15, no. 5 Hong Kong, May 1984. p. 27.
  • , no. 39 Lexington, Massachusetts, 2018. p. 141, fig. 11.
Collection Area(s)
Chinese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
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