Incense burner with design of mountain retreat

Small, cylindrical; low, retired foot. Gold lacquer repair.
Clay: hard, dense, grayish. Stoneware.
Glaze: transparent, appearing lustrous cream-white; overflow of pinkish-fawn.
Decoration: in gosu (agrolite, an impure cobalt oxide) under glaze. Pavilion and landscape.

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Maker(s)
Artist: Ogata Kenzan , Chojiyamachi workshop (1663-1743)
Historical period(s)
Edo period, 1712-ca. 1731
Medium
Stoneware with cobalt pigment under clear glaze; gold lacquer repairs
Dimensions
H x Diam: 6.1 Ɨ 8 cm (2 3/8 Ɨ 3 1/8 in)
Geography
Japan, Kyoto prefecture, Kyoto
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Accession Number
F1898.440
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Incense burner

Keywords
Edo period (1615 - 1868), incense, Japan, lacquer repair, landscape, mountain
Provenance

To 1898
Bunkio Matsuki (1867-1940), Boston, to 1898 [1]

From 1898 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Bunkio Matsuki in 1898 [2]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] See Original Pottery List, L. 438, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[2] See note 1.

[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919
Bunkio Matsuki (C.L. Freer source) 1867-1940

Description

Small, cylindrical; low, retired foot. Gold lacquer repair.
Clay: hard, dense, grayish. Stoneware.
Glaze: transparent, appearing lustrous cream-white; overflow of pinkish-fawn.
Decoration: in gosu (agrolite, an impure cobalt oxide) under glaze. Pavilion and landscape.

Inscription(s)

Inscription.

Label

The overall composition suggests a handscroll wrapped around the vessel. The poem, appropriate to the high-minded flavor of the mountain retreat, may be paraphrased thus:


Indifferent to expense, they built a lofty golden terrace
Settled here in seclusion, my mind has turned to ashes.

The poem alludes to a well-known series of linked verses called Jingqiu langu (Reflections on Jingqiu) composed by Chen Ziang (661-702).


The absence of glaze on the interior shows the vessel was made not as a tea bowl but as an incense burner. It has been suggested that the use of the character "ash," connoting "extinction," at the end of the poem relates to the use of this piece as an incense burner (the incense is laid over a bed of ash). The harmonization of visual and literary imagery with actual deployment is a fitting example of the first Kenzan's total approach.

Published References
  • Louise Allison Cort. A Kenzan Incense Burner. vol. 35, no. 2, Summer/Fall 2007. .
  • Richard L. Wilson. The Art of Ogata Kenzan: Persona and Production in Japanese Ceramics., 1st ed. New York and Tokyo. fig. 307.
  • Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections. 12 vols., Tokyo. vol. 10, pl. 198.
  • Richard L. Wilson. The Potter's Brush: The Kenzan Style in Japanese Ceramics. Exh. cat. Washington. p. 61, fig. 1.
  • , no. 39 Lexington, Massachusetts, 2018. p. 151, fig. 29.
  • Louise Allison Cort. The Kenzan Style in Japanese Ceramics. Watertown, Massachusetts, Autumn 2002. p. 168.
Collection Area(s)
Japanese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
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