Tea Bowl

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On display

V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 137, The Curtain Foundation Gallery

Artist/Maker	Unknown
Place of origin	Seto (made) Mino (made)

Stoneware tea bowl of distorted shape with yellowish green ash glaze. It is badly broken and the parts have been joined together with gold lacquer; there are also small sections of the rim of another bowl stuck to its underside. The likelihood is that the bowl was excavated from a kiln waste-heap.

Object details

Categories	Ceramics Stoneware
Object type	Tea bowl
Materials and techniques	Glazed stoneware with gold lacquer repairs Stoneware Glazed
Brief description	Tea bowl, stoneware with yellowish green ash glaze; Japan, Seto/Mino, Muromachi period, 1400-1500
Physical description	Stoneware tea bowl of distorted shape with yellowish green ash glaze. It is badly broken and the parts have been joined together with gold lacquer; there are also small sections of the rim of another bowl stuck to its underside. The likelihood is that the bowl was excavated from a kiln waste-heap.
Dimensions	Height: 7.9cm Length: 19.4cm Width: 15.9cm
Style	Muromachi
Gallery label	(As at 2005) BOWL Stoneware with yellowish green ash glaze Seto ware JAPANESE; e.1400-1500 175-1877 Teabowls of this kind were fired in stacks of up to five pieces. This piece shows the remains of the bowl that was fired beneath it. This, and the distorted shape, suggest that this bowl was excavated from a kiln waste heap and restored.
Object history	Purchased from the Japanese Commissioners for the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, accessioned in 1877. This acquisition information reflects that found in the Asia Department registers, as part of a 2022 provenance research project.
Association	Philadelphia International Exhibition, 1876 (1876)
Bibliographic reference	Augustus Wollaston Franks and M. Shioda, Japanese Pottery. [London]: Chapman & Hall Ltd., 1880. South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks; 18. Catalogue number 16
Collection	East Asia Collection
Accession number	175-1877

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Record created	June 25, 2009
Record URL	https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O437411/tea-bowl-unknown/

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