Three-Eared Jar with Chrysanthemum Design (Tamba)

A Representative Kamakura Stoneware Jar

The Three-Eared Jar with Chrysanthemum Design (Tamba) (菊花文三耳壺〈丹波〉) is a Kamakura-period three-eared jar from the Tamba kilns at the Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum in Minamiyamaguchi-cho, Seto City, Aichi Prefecture, which in 2005 was designated an Important Cultural Property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records one jar 30.0 centimetres high, with a mouth of 9.9 centimetres, a body 20.7 centimetres across and a base of 8.6 centimetres.

According to the Agency, it comes from the Tamba kilns in Sasayama, Hyogo Prefecture, one of the representative ceramic centres of medieval Japan.

The Jar

According to the Agency, the body is a dense grey-white clay with fine grains of feldspar and quartz, its surface a light brown. Coiled and then finished on the wheel, it has a long body with gently rounded shoulders and three horizontal lugs made of two joined clay coils.

The shoulder and upper body are incised with half chrysanthemums of three overlapping layers between the lugs, with leaves and flowering plants, and petals circle the base of the neck; a dark green natural ash glaze runs from the neck over the shoulder.

What to Look For

The Agency notes that the flattened rim and the small, nearly solid lugs are later features, and with the dates of the kiln it places the jar in the early thirteenth century.

The Agency calls it, with its crisply incised chrysanthemums and almost undamaged, well-proportioned form, an outstanding example of Kamakura ceramics following late Heian works such as the Autumn Grasses jar.

Visiting the Three-Eared Jar with Chrysanthemum Design (Tamba)

The jar is at the Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum and is not always on display; check the museum's schedule.