Tea Storage Jar (mid- to late 1600s): Art, History and Details

Tea Storage Jar (mid- to late 1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Nonomura Ninsei (Japanese, active 1640s–90s).

The work and its context

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

In this tea storage jar, Nonomura Ninsei reinterpreted a Shigaraki stoneware—made to hold agricultural products and known for its warm orange color, asymmetrical round forms, and irregular natural ash glazes—to produce a more refined piece that would appeal to tea masters seeking a touch of rusticity. In Japanese tea culture, hanging scroll paintings or calligraphy are placed in the tokonoma, or viewing alcove, for participants to admire and discuss along with the utensils used in the gathering. The scrolls are typically paired with vessels containing seasonal floral arrangements.

Object facts

• Title: Tea Storage Jar
• Date: mid- to late 1600s
• Creator attribution: Nonomura Ninsei (Japanese, active 1640s–90s)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Stoneware with white glaze (Shigaraki style)
• Dimensions: height: 28.3 cm (11 1/8 in.); Diameter: 28.7 cm (11 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1978.6

A detail from the museum

This jar may be considered an example of the aesthetic known as kireisabi, or refined rusticity.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Zauhō Kankōkai 座右寶刋行會. Sekai tōji zenshū [世界陶磁全集 = Ceramic Art of the World]. Vol. 6, Edo hen [江戶篇 = Edo Period]. Edited by Tadamari Mitsuoka. Tōkyō: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1955.
• Yamane, Yūzō 山根有三, Shūjirō Shimada 島田修二郎, and Terukazu Akiyama 秋山光和. Zaigai Nihon no shihō 在外日本の至宝. Tōkyō: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1979.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1978.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 66, no. 1, 1979, pp. 3–47.

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.