Jug with Oblong Body: Sueki Ware (700s): Art, History and Details

Jug with Oblong Body: Sueki Ware (700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The unusual shape of this sturdy vessel derives from two deep bowl forms being joined together at their mouths. An opening was then cut out where the separately formed neck and mouth were attached. This vessel shape came to early Japan from Korea, as did the paddled surface decoration technique.The jug's rich surface tonalities were created by wood ash in the kiln chamber that settled on the vessel during firing. The mottled gray areas indicate where large accumulations of ash adhered to the hot body. The darker, green skin that appears shiny or reflective represents generous ash accumulations that vitrified, becoming a natural green glaze. In one area this accumulation is so rich that it formed rivulets of glassy green glaze, propelled across the black matte surface by the fiery winds coursing within the kiln.

Object facts

• Title: Jug with Oblong Body: Sueki Ware
• Date: 700s
• Culture: Japan, Nara period (710–94)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: stoneware, with impressed decoration and natural ash glaze
• Dimensions: Overall: 31 x 29.8 cm (12 3/16 x 11 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1999.121

Collection credit

Gift of Klaus F. Naumann in honored memory of Robert P. Bergman

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Major Contemporary German Painting Acquired by CMA,” June 9, 1999, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

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.