Storage jar (lei)

Jar (mouth broken and repaired).
Clay: hard, white, unglazed.
Decoration: carved design in countersunk relief in two registers. Three pierced knobs in true relief in the form of water-buffalo heads. Traces of red pigment around neck.

Historical period(s)
early Anyang period, Late Shang dynasty, ca. 1200 BCE
Medium
Unglazed white pottery
Dimensions
H x W x D: 33.3 × 30.3 × 31.1 cm (13 1/8 × 11 15/16 × 12 1/4 in)
Geography
China, probably Henan province, Anyang
Credit Line
Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Accession Number
F1939.42
On View Location
Sackler Gallery 24a: Anyang: China's Ancient City of Kings
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Jar

Keywords
Anyang period (ca. 1300 - ca. 1050 BCE), China
Provenance

To 1939
Tonying and Company, New York [1]

From 1939
Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from Tonying and Company, New York [2]

Notes:

[1] Curatorial Remark 1 in the object record.

[2] See note 1.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Tonying and Company established 1902

Description

Jar (mouth broken and repaired).
Clay: hard, white, unglazed.
Decoration: carved design in countersunk relief in two registers. Three pierced knobs in true relief in the form of water-buffalo heads. Traces of red pigment around neck.

Label

The rare Shang white pottery has been found in such small quantities, all in the vicinity of the late Shang capital at Anyang, that it may have been the product of a single specialized workshop.  The brittle ware, formed from pure white clay, was probably made for ceremonial and burial purposes.  The carved and stamped motifs on white pottery resemble bronze vessel decor but developed as an independent  sequence.

Published References
  • Maris Boyd Gillette. China's Porcelain Capital: The Rise, Fall and Reinvention of Ceramics in Jingdezhen. London. Plate 3.
  • Anyang wen hsien. vol. 11, . cover.
  • T'an Tan-chiung. T'ao tz' hui lu. Taipei. pl. 189.
  • Chung-kuo tiao su shih t'u lu. Chung-kuo mei shu shih t'u lu ts'ung shu Shanghai. vol. 1: p. 36.
  • T'an Tan-chiung. Chung-hua i-shu t'u-lu [Chinese Art]. Taipei. pl. 16.
  • William Watson. Early Civilization in China. Library of the early civilizations London, 1966. pl. 47.
  • William Watson. China Before the Han Dynasty. Ancient Peoples and Places, vol. 23 New York. fig. 30.
  • William Watson. The Art of Dynastic China. New York, 1981. ill. 574.
  • Sueji Umehara. Mitabi hakushoku doki ni tsuite [Concerning White Chinese Pottery]. vol. 10, no. 2, November 1940. frontispiece.
  • Sueji Umehara. Kanan Anyo ibutsu no kenkyu [Study of Relics from Anyang]. Kyoto. pl. 22.
  • Sueji Umehara. Yin hsu: Ancient Capital of the Shang Dynasty at An-yang. Tokyo. pl. 56.
  • Mary Tregear. Chinese Art. London. pl. 10.
  • Michael Sullivan. A Short History of Chinese Art. Berkeley. fig. 3a.
  • Michael Sullivan. An Introduction to Chinese Art. Los Angeles and Berkeley, CA. fig. 7.
  • Osvald Siren. Kinas Konst Under Tre Artusenden. 2 vols., Stockholm, 1942-1943. vol. 1: pl. 13.
  • Sekai kokogaku taikei [Archaeology of the World]. 16 vols., Tokyo, 1958-1962. vol. 6: p. 118, fig. 39.
  • Sekai bijutsu zenshu [A Complete Collection of World Art]. 40 vols., Tokyo, F1951-1953. cat. 66, vol. 2.
  • Maria Penkala. Far Eastern Ceramics: Marks and Decoration. The Hague. pl. 3.
  • Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections. 12 vols., Tokyo. vol. 10, pl. 1.
  • Sekai toji zenshu [Catalogue of the World's Ceramics]. 16 vols, Tokyo, 1955-1958. vol. 8: pl. 5.
  • Hugo Munsterberg. A Short History of Chinese Art. New York, 1949. pl. 8.
  • Hakutsura Bijutsukan. Old Chinese Art. Osaka. pl. 64.
  • Margaret Medley. The Chinese Potter: A Practical History of Chinese Ceramics. Oxford. fig. 19.
  • Lin-ts'an Li. The Aesthetics of Chinese Art. vol. 18, no. 5/6 Taipei, November/December 1983 - January/February 1984. pl. 2.
  • Walter Hochstadter. Pottery and Stonewares of Shang, Chou, and Han. Ostasiatiska Samlingarna Bulletin, no. 24 Stockholm. pl. 9, fig. 36.
  • He Liankui. Tribal Culture and the T'ao T'ieh Motif in Ancient Chinese Art. vol. 4, no. 4 Taipei, April 1970. pl. 1b.
  • Hai wai i chen [Chinese Art in Overseas Collections]. Taipei, 1985. vol. 3: p. 11.
  • Grace Dunham Guest. Chinese Porcelain at the Freer Gallery of Art. vol. 20, no. 1 Columbus, Ohio, January 1941. fig. 1.
  • Rene Grousset. La Chine et son Art. Collection Ars et historia Paris. facing p. 1.
  • Basil Gray. Early Chinese Pottery and Porcelain. London. front cover.
  • L. Carrington Goodrich. A Short History of the Chinese People., rev. ed. New York. pl. 6.
  • L. Carrington Goodrich. A Short History of the Chinese People., 1st ed. New York. pl. 6.
  • The Encyclopedia of World Art. 17 vols., New York, 1959-1968. vol. 3: pl. 220.
  • Thomas Dexel. Fruhe Keramik in China: Die Entwicklung der Hauptformen vom Neolithikum bis in die T'ang-Zeit. Braunschweig, Germany. pl. 17a.
  • Warren E. Cox. The Book of Pottery and Porcelain. 2 vols., New York. vol. 1: p. 24, pl. 6.
  • Cheng Te-k'un. Archaeology in China. 3 vols., Cambridge, England. pl. 39.
  • Li Chaoyuan. Bronces arcaicos del Museo de Shanghai: Festines, Rituales y Ceremonias, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya del 22 de junio al 12 de septiembre de 2004. Exh. cat. Barcelona. fig. 9.
  • Ludwig Bachhofer. A Short History of Chinese Art. New York. pl. 6.
  • Dr. John Alexander Pope, Thomas Lawton, Harold P. Stern. The Freer Gallery of Art. 2 vols., Washington and Tokyo, 1971-1972. cat. 85, vol. 1: p. 173.
  • Rene Grousset. Chinese Art and Culture. New York. p. 4.
  • Introduction to Chinese Fired Wares. Tokyo, February 2009. p. 6.
  • Grace Dunham Guest, Archibald Gibson Wenley. Annotated Outlines of the History of Chinese Arts. Washington, 1949. p. 8.
  • Judith Burling, Arthur H. Burling. Buying Antiques in China. vol. 47, no. 275 London, January 1948. p. 11.
  • Ross E. Taggart. Relief-Ornamented Ceramics: A Historical Survey: April fourth to twenty-eighth, 1963. Nelson Gallery Foundation; Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 3 Kansas City, MO. p. 14.
  • Peter C. Swann. Art of China, Korea, and Japan. New York. p. 18, fig. 9.
  • Kodai Chugoku [Ancient China]. Sekai rekishi shirizu, vol. 3 Tokyo. p. 18.
  • Lin-ts'an Li. Chung-kuo ti i shu kuang hui. no. 20, . p. 18.
  • Michael Sullivan. The Arts of China., 3rd ed. Berkeley. p. 20.
  • Kida Takuya. Hotsuma Katori: Metal Craft Historian and Artist: Towards Establishment of "Japanism" in the Crafts. no. 11 Tokyo. p. 22, fig. 1.
  • Michel Beurdeley. A Connoisseur's Guide to Chinese Ceramics. New York. p. 27.
  • W. Aubrey Cartwright. Guide to Art Museums in the United States: East Coast, Washington to Miami., 1st ed. New York. p. 30, r.
  • Sherman Lee. A History of Far Eastern Art. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1964. p. 31, fig. 16.
  • Dagny Carter. Four Thousand Years of China's Art. New York. p. 34.
  • William Willetts. Foundations of Chinese Art from Neolithic Pottery to Modern Architecture. New York, 1965. p. 37.
  • Wang Shixiang. Seven Great Centers of Our Country's Art in the Imperialist United States. vol. 7 Taipei. pp. 45-55, pl. 23.
  • Bo Gyllensvard. Celadon, Jade: Finds, Specimen, Scientific Results; Exhibition. Exh. cat. Stockholm, May-June 1963. p. 46, fig. 8.
  • Sekai toji zenshu [Catalogue of the World's Ceramics]. 19 vols., Tokyo, 1976-1982. pp. 52-53, pl. 45.
  • Ideals of Beauty: Asian and American Art in the Freer and Sackler Galleries. Thames and Hudson World of Art London and Washington, 2010. pp. 60-61.
  • Masterpieces of Chinese and Japanese Art: Freer Gallery of Art handbook. Washington, 1976. p. 61.
  • , Dr. David R. Nalin, Alice Cheng. Orientations. vol. 51, no. 4. Hong Kong, China, July / August 2020. p. 66, fig. 1.
  • Zusetsu sekai bunkashi taikei [Cultural History of the World]. 27 vols., Tokyo, 1958-1961. p. 89.
  • Inma Gonzalez Puy. From Ritual to Collection: Inspiration and Cross-Influences in Ceramics and Bronze in China. Lisbon, Portugal, April 2005. p. 89, fig. 12.
  • Judith Burling, Arthur H. Burling. Chinese Art. New York. p. 174.
  • Mizuno Seiichi, Yukio Kobayashi. Zukai kokogaku jiten [Dictionary of Archaeology]. Tokyo. p. 797.
  • Li Ji. Evolution of the White Pottery of the Yin Dynasty. vol. 28, pt. 2 Taipei. p. 880.
Collection Area(s)
Chinese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
SI Usage Statement

Usage Conditions Apply

There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.

The information presented on this website may be revised and updated at any time as ongoing research progresses or as otherwise warranted. Pending any such revisions and updates, information on this site may be incomplete or inaccurate or may contain typographical errors. Neither the Smithsonian nor its regents, officers, employees, or agents make any representations about the accuracy, reliability, completeness, or timeliness of the information on the site. Use this site and the information provided on it subject to your own judgment. The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery welcome information that would augment or clarify the ownership history of objects in their collections.

citation | Save this image How to download an image | Request Permission | Terms of Use

Related Objects