Artworks

Jar with peony design (Ko Seto)

Artwork · Anonymous · 1201–1400 · jar · Tokyo National Museum

A Ko Seto (Seto ware) jar in the shape the Chinese call meiping, a wine bottle or saké decanter: narrow neck, articulated lip, long body swelling at the shoulder. Peonies are incised into the clay; the yellow glaze is applied so heavily that it runs in streaks — the vessel would not pass muster in China, but shows Japanese potters adapting Chinese forms to a native idiom. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 179–180, fig. 208. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.