Jar (481–221 BCE): Art, History and Details

Jar (481–221 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Bronze Age potters customarily used patterned wooden paddles to smooth the ridges of their coil-built wares. Because such early pots were beaten repeatedly and randomly while still in the leather-hard state, the paddles did not leave isolated, self-contained patterns, but an overall surface texture.

Object facts

• Title: Jar
• Date: 481–221 BCE
• Culture: China, Hunan province, reportedly Changsha, Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BCE), Warring States period (475–221 BCE)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: earthenware with stamped decoration
• Dimensions: Diameter of mouth: 12.8 cm (5 1/16 in.); Overall: 25.7 cm (10 1/8 in.)
• Collection: China - Zhou Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1938.195

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Shafer, Thomas. Pottery Decoration. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1976.
• Wilson, J. Keith, and Anne E. Wardwell. "New Objects/New Insights: Cleveland's Recent Chinese Acquisitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 8 (October 1994): 270–347.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.