Object Details
- Description
- Rectangular tea leaf storage jar with rounded profile, short neck and small out-turning lip.
- Clay: gray stoneware, fired reddish buff.
- Glaze: uneven reddish brown with black areas.
- Decoration: sherd of bowl rim adhering to one wall.
- Mark: Ninsei.
- Marks
- Ninsei
- Label
- The Kyoto potter Ninsei, master of a workshop located near the Buddhist temple Ninnaji, was the creative leader of Kyoto ceramics in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. His repertoire included stylish reinterpretations of classic Chinese, Korean, and Japanese ceramics, such as this tea-leaf jar, which is covered in an iron glaze associated with jars from the Seto kilns (Ninsei is said to have trained in Seto as a young man.) Ninsei enlivened the glaze by using a stiff brush to rub away areas of the glaze before firing, resulting in a richly colored and textured surface. He also transformed the standard wheel-thrown jar shape by pressing sharp edges into the soft clay to create a four-sided form. A rim fragment of a small white-glazed bowl adhering to the dark glaze documents an accident in the kiln. Ninsei must have accepted if not welcomed this unexpected decoration, since he did not destroy the jar.
- Collection
- Freer Gallery of Art Collection
- Exhibition History
- Rusticity Refined: Kyoto Ceramics by Ninsei (March 19 to October 23, 2005)
- Faith and Form: Selected Calligraphy and Painting from the Japanese Religious Traditions (March 20 to July 18, 2004)
- Japanese Art in the Age of Koetsu (June 6, 1998 to February 15, 1999)
- Japanese Art (April 13 to November 21, 1995)
- Kyoto Ceramics (November 9, 1984 to April 25, 1985)
- Japanese Ceramics (June 22, 1982 to September 27, 1982)
- Japanese Ceramics/Puppets (June 16, 1980 to July 14, 1980)
- Japanese Ceramics (July 15, 1980 to June 21, 1982)
- Japanese Ceramics (April 11, 1978 to January 17, 1980)
- Japanese Art (July 1, 1974 to April 10, 1978)
- Japanese Art: Paintings and Pottery (July 1, 1966 to May 2, 1973)
- Data Source
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
- Artist
- Nonomura Ninsei (active ca. 1646-77)
- Date
- ca. 1646-1677
- Period
- Edo period
- Credit Line
- Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment
- Medium
- Stoneware with iron glaze
- Dimensions
- H x W: 24.8 x 27.3 cm (9 3/4 x 10 3/4 in)
- Type
- Vessel
