Jar

Jar, tall, ovoid
Clay: fairly soft
Glaze: orange-red with overflow of greenish-cream; high purplish iridescence.

Historical period(s)
ca. 1914
Medium
Glazed clay
Style
Pewabic ware
Dimensions
H x Diam (overall): 32.1 x 22 cm (12 5/8 x 8 11/16 in)
Geography
United States, Michigan, Detroit
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Accession Number
F1914.117
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Jar

Keywords
glazed, Pewabic ware, United States
Provenance

To 1914
Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, MI [1]

1914-1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Pewabic Pottery [2]

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

Notes:

[1] Freer purchased the object on June 1, 1914 from Pewabic Pottery. See invoice from Pewabic Pottery, June 1, 1914, where the object is described as "1 pink jar," copy in object file.

[2] See note 1. In the inventory Freer and his associates prepared for the Smithsonian Institution, the object is described as "One Tall, Ovoid Jar, with short neck and small mouth... Lustrous pink glaze, with rich cream-colored overflow around neck and shoulder." See copy in object file.

[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.

Research completed October 31, 2022.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919
Pewabic Pottery (C.L. Freer source)

Description

Jar, tall, ovoid
Clay: fairly soft
Glaze: orange-red with overflow of greenish-cream; high purplish iridescence.

Label

The Pewabic Pottery was a ceramics workshop in Detroit established at the turn of the century.  The primary aesthetic interest of its founder, Mary Chase Perry Stratton, was the art of glazing, or "painting with fire."  Stratton's friend and patron Charles Lang Freer fostered her efforts by providing fragments of ancient Asian pots to emulate.  Her mature works are clearly inspired by the surfaces and shapes of ceramics in Freer's collection, particularly the Islamic pottery known as Raqqa ware, with its distinctive iridescence. The surfaces also resonate with paintings in Freer's collection by James McNeill Whistler, Thomas Dewing, and Dwight Tryon.

Collection Area(s)
American Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
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