Large Jar (1400s): Art, History and Details

Large Jar (1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The orange color of this jar comes from iron in the clay. Natural ash glaze settled on the vessel during firing. Originally intended for grain storage, rustic containers like this one were also prized by tea enthusiasts, who appreciated the uncalculated beauty of the glaze and the asymmetry of these humble objects. They used them to store tea leaves.

Object facts

• Title: Large Jar
• Date: 1400s
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: stoneware with natural ash glaze (Shigaraki ware)
• Dimensions: Overall: 43.8 x 38.1 cm (17 1/4 x 15 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2020.191

Collection credit

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• Tsujimura Shirō. "壺中の天 信楽壺名品に見る" (Tsubonaka no ten Shigaraki tsubo meihin ni miru) [Heaven in a Jar, Looking at Masterworks of Shigaraki Jars]. 大壺小壺骨董を楽しむ 26別冊太陽 (Ōtsubo kotsubo, kottō wo tanoshimu 26. Besattsu Taiyō). [Large Jars, Small Jars. Enjoying Antiques, no. 26, The Sun, Supplement]. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1999, 4–21.
• Yūraku. 特集 古信楽 M I H O M U S E U M 秋季特別展「信楽−壺の天」より(Tokushū ko-Shigaraki MIHO MUSEUM shūki tokubetsuten, “Shigaraki—Tsubonaka no ten” yori) [From the Miho Museum’s Autumn Special Exhibition, “Shigaraki—Heaven in a Jar”]. 遊楽 (Yūraku) [Yu-raku], no. 73 (July 1999): 8–19.
• Miho Museum. Shigaraki: tsubonaka no ten [信樂 : 壺中の天 = Ko-Shigaraki: jars from Shigaraki's medieval kilns]. Shiga-ken: Miho Museum, 1999.

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.