Large Jar with Peonies, Orchids, and Chrysanthemums (late 1600s): Art, History and Details

Large Jar with Peonies, Orchids, and Chrysanthemums (late 1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Spring peonies, summer orchids, and autumn chrysanthemums bloom at the same time amid garden rocks. These underglaze blue motifs were inspired by similar designs on Chinese ceramics made for export to Europe. In the early 1600s, Korean potters in Japan discovered kaolin, the clay essential for porcelain production. At the same time, political turmoil in China following the collapse of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) disrupted Chinese exports. Together, these circumstances created an opportunity for Japan to supply ceramics to the European market. Careful study of Chinese prototypes shaped the work of Japanese ceramists for both domestic and overseas audiences.

Object facts

• Title: Large Jar with Peonies, Orchids, and Chrysanthemums
• Date: late 1600s
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Porcelain with underglaze blue decoration (Imari ware)
• Dimensions: Diameter: 30.5 cm (12 in.); height: 40.1 cm (15 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1964.266

A detail from the museum

This design shows the changing of the seasons: one side depicts a peony blossom in the spring, and the other side continues with chrysanthemums and an orchid in the autumn.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of the Severance and Greta Millikin Collection. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1990.
• Sŏn, Sŭng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011.

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.