Jar, stoneware with brown and white glazes; Japan, Tsutsumi kilns, 1800-1900

Jar, heavily thrown from coarse stoneware clay firing from mid-brown to rust red on the flat base. The surface is much marked by the presence of large quartz-like particles and by webs of fissures sometimes surrounding these. The jar is squat looking and has high shoulders with a short neck below a square solid mouth formed by the rim having been folded right over and compressed against the neck. An olive-tinged dark brown glaze covers the whole interior, and the exterior almost down to the base. The exterior coverage is strangely patchy, however, and the glaze has a 'lemon peel' texture to its surface. The mouth has been dipped into a thick white glaze which runs down in random drips both inside and out. The white glaze has mixed with the brown so that it is mottled and streaked. There are four evenly spaced patches around the rim where there is no white glaze and very little brown. These indicate, perhaps, how the jar was supported while being dipped into the white glaze. There are five spur marks on the inside bottom and two further marks from where the glaze of the smaller pot stacked inside must have run and adhered.

The Tsutsumi kilns supplied robust, functional pottery to the area centred on the large castle town of Sendai in north-eastern Japan. The combination of two glazes in contrasting colours is common on everyday ceramics from many different parts of the country. Marks on the inside of the jar show that a smaller vessel was placed inside it to maximise the use of space in the kiln during firing.

FE.7-1985