Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Japan, Room 45, The Toshiba Gallery

Bottle

1600-1650 (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Tamba (made)

Simple and unprepossessing, Tamba wares, made at kilns located in Hyogo Prefecture (former Tamba Province), are admired for their warm, variegated colours and rich surface textures. Predominantly intended for day-to-day use, Tamba wares were functional and robust. At the same time their restrained qualities appealed to practitioners of the tea ceremony. Bottles such as this, with its wide base and narrow mouth, would have been used in inns and other such establishments for the storing and serving of sake (rice wine).



Object details

Categories
Ceramics
Stoneware
Containers
Object type
Bottle
Materials and techniques
Stoneware, thrown and partially sculpted, with natural ash glaze
Stoneware
Unglazed
Brief description
Bottle for sake, stoneware, with glossy, reddish puprle surface and random scorch marks, Tamba, Japan, 1600-1650
Physical description
Bottle of tall, elongated form narrowing to a small mouth. Indentation on one side. The surface is a glossy, reddish purple colour resulting from the oxidation of the iron-rich Tamba clay. Random scorch marks visible on surface. Accidental streaking of natural ash glaze on one side.
Dimensions
  • Height: 34cm
  • Diameter: 17.6cm
Styles
Momoyama
Edo Period
Gallery label
  • Bottle for sake 1600–50 This large bottle has a combination of accidental forming and glaze effects of the kind long admired by Japanese connoisseurs. Yanagi Sōetsu, the founder of the Japanese Folk Craft movement, taught that the beauty of such objects lay in their having been ‘born, not made’. To understand them, he said, you had to exercise ‘direct perception’ (chokkan), a concept derived from Buddhist philosophy. Tanba kilns Stoneware with natural ash glaze Gift of Alexander Bruce Museum no. FE.82-2011 (04/11/2015)
  • Bottle Tamba kilns Stoneware with natural ash glaze 1600-1650 V&A FE.82-2011 Gift of Alexander Bruce (December 2014)
Credit line
Given by Alexander Bruce
Summary
Simple and unprepossessing, Tamba wares, made at kilns located in Hyogo Prefecture (former Tamba Province), are admired for their warm, variegated colours and rich surface textures. Predominantly intended for day-to-day use, Tamba wares were functional and robust. At the same time their restrained qualities appealed to practitioners of the tea ceremony. Bottles such as this, with its wide base and narrow mouth, would have been used in inns and other such establishments for the storing and serving of sake (rice wine).

Collection
East Asia Collection
Accession number
FE.82-2011

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Record createdFebruary 1, 2011
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1191277/bottle-unknown/
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