Water Container (Mizusashi) with Riverscape (late 1500s–early 1600s): Art, History and Details

Water Container (Mizusashi) with Riverscape (late 1500s–early 1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Mizusashi are jars used to hold water for the preparation of tea at tea gatherings. This one was produced in the Mino area of present-day Gifu Prefecture in central Japan. It is called a “picture Shino” (e-shino) mizusashi, as it has an abstracted design on one side, said to resemble an ink painting of reeds and small boats along a riverbank, and a geometric pattern on the other. With its irregular shape and thick, luminous glaze, it is of a variety favored by eminent tea masters of the Momoyama period.

Object facts

• Title: Water Container (Mizusashi) with Riverscape
• Date: late 1500s–early 1600s
• Culture: Japan, Momoyama period (1573-1615) to Edo period (1615-1858)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Stoneware with underglaze iron oxide slip decoration (Mino ware, Shino type) and lacquer lid (modern replacement)
• Dimensions: Diameter: 19.6 cm (7 11/16 in.); Lid: 2.9 x 14.7 cm (1 1/8 x 5 13/16 in.); Container: 18.4 cm (7 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1972.9

A detail from the museum

The water this container held during a tea gathering was used to fill the kama, or iron pot in which the water is heated.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “Some Japanese Tea Taste Ceramics.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 9 (November 1973): 267–278.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Lee, Sherman E, Ursula Korneitchouk, Michael R Cunningham, Ursula Korneitchouk, Cleveland Museum of Art, Japan House Gallery, Japan Society (New York, N.Y.), and Japan House Gallery. One Thousand Years of Japanese Art (650-1650): From the Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue. New York: Japan Society, 1981.

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.