Excavated from Minamikaze, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture
12th century
Height 40.0cm, Bore 16.3cm, Body 29.0cm, Bottom 13.6cm
National Treasure
Keio University
This jar with a design of autumn grasses was discovered in April 1942 as a warehouse vessel in a small stone chamber in the Kawahara stone pile during road expansion work at the southern end of Mt. In March 1953, it was designated as a National Treasure, the only Heian period ceramic ware to be so designated.
The shape of the vessel is typical of this period, with a large trumpet-shaped open mouth neck and a long, shouldered body bordered by a two-tiered band, and is descended from the ash-glazed large wide-mouth vases that were often made as kurakotsu wares in the late Heian period. This vessel is made of coarse yellowish-white clay rich in sand, with a rolled-up clay body, and the lower half of the body is shaped using wood. The vessel was fired in good condition, with a blackish-brown surface and a thick yellowish-green ash glaze covering the shoulder and a part of the body. The design is boldly painted in three parts: the neck, shoulder, and body. The neck is divided into four sections with a dragonfly and a rectangular pattern in the front and back, and a glove in the middle of the dragonfly.
On the inner surface of the mouth rim above the rectangular design is engraved the character “上” (“上”). Two parallel sunken lines are drawn on the shoulders, and like the mouth and neck, the lower line is the bottom line, with the glauca on the left and right, and different pictures are painted on the front and back, but the position of the glauca is slightly different from that of the mouth and neck, and does not correspond neatly. In the upper section, a rectangular design is painted below the glabella, with a butterfly to the right of the rectangle and a star-shaped petal to the right of the butterfly. In the lower section, a willow tree is depicted below the petals and a tree, possibly a cherry tree, is depicted to the left of the willow tree, with grass patterns on both sides of the tree. On the opposite side, the vine, leaves, and fruit of a crow melon bearing abundant fruit are depicted on a single surface, not restricted to the two-tiered double lines.
The body of the bowl is painted with a large, wind-swept glaze on three sides, filling the surface of the bowl.
Although this inscription has been understood to depict autumnal scenes, the willow and cherry blossoms on the opposite side of the crow gourd indicate spring scenes in Yamato-e, and the star-shaped petals and the rectangular design, when viewed as a rabbit flower blooming on a hedge, indicate summer scenes. The crow’s gourd indicates an autumnal scene.
In this way, it is clear that the patterns on the shoulders are associated with the seasons of spring, summer, and autumn, and that the paintings are divided into four sections. They represent the four seasons, which was the main subject of Yamato-e, a popular painting style at that time.
