Storage Jar: Tamba Ware (1400s): Art, History and Details

Storage Jar: Tamba Ware (1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This vessel served as a storage container for rice or other grains in medieval farming communities. The piece was made by potters in Tamba, a fertile region west of Kyoto which used such vessels to send its agricultural products to towns throughout western Japan. Tamba ware is recognized by its warm green glaze, created as accumulations of natural wood ash settle on the clay body and liquefy when the kiln temperature is sufficiently high. The jar's contours reveal that it was built in four stages from many clay coils pressed together by hand. The smooth neck and mouth were wheel-turned. The vertical, incised lines visible on the reddish-brown body indicate where a comb-like tool scraped excess clay from the body wall; this technique helped conserve clay material and wood used in the firing. The scraping also exposes the grittiness of local Tamba clay, which in the 15th century did not undergo an extensive refining process.

Object facts

• Title: Storage Jar: Tamba Ware
• Date: 1400s
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: stoneware with natural ash glaze
• Dimensions: Diameter: 39 cm (15 3/8 in.); Overall: 45 cm (17 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2002.66

Collection credit

The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Grossman, Nancy, James T. Ulak, Marjorie Williams, and Laurence Channing. Art of Japan: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2005.
• Freeman, J. "Just One Thing After Another." Impressions: Official Publication of the Ukiyo-E Society of America 39, pt. 1 (2018): 67-129.

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.