Tea ceremony water jar

Freer purchased this tea ceremony water jar, with a clear crackled glaze suffused with opalescent blue, in 1900 from the Fifth Avenue shop of Yamanka and Company. Although its origins were uncertain in Freer's day, it is now dated to the Momoyama period, in the early seventeenth. It shows a distinctly Korean influence: In the aftermath of Japan's two invasions of the Korean peninsula in the 1590s, sometimes known as the "Pottery Wars," hundreds of Korean potters were resettled within warrior domains in southern Japan. The kilns that they established became important sources of tea-ceremony ceramics and tablewares. Early southern wares like this reflect the shapes, glazes, and decorative techniques of their Korean prototypes.