Sake bottle with flaring mouth and design of crane

first half of the 19th century

Medium/TechniqueTamba ware; Tachikui ware stoneware with over-decoration

DimensionsCeramics: 5.8 × 4 × 18 cm (2 5/16 × 1 9/16 × 7 1/16 in.)

Credit LineMorse Collection. Museum purchase with funds donated by contribution

Accession number92.4955

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsCeramics

Collections

Asia

ProvenanceBy the 1870s, Ninagawa Noritane (b. 1835 – d. 1882), Tokyo, Japan; before 1882, probably sold by Ninagawa to Francis Brinkley (b. 1841 – d. 1912), Tokyo; 1886, sold by Brinkley, through Edward Greey (dealer; b. 1835 – d. 1888), New York [see note 1], possibly to Edward Sylvester Morse (b. 1838 – d. 1925); Boston [see note 2]; 1892, sold by Morse to the MFA. (Accession Date: March 1, 1892)

NOTES:
[1] The Brinkley collection was exhibited and sold by Edward Greey. Greey lent this object, on Brinkley’s behalf, to the MFA from June until December 1885. See Description of a Collection of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Porcelain, Pottery and Faience made by Captain F. Brinkley (Edward Greey, New York, 1885), cat. no. 408.

[2] According to Edward Sylvester Morse, “Five Originals of Ninagawa’s Work,” Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin 23, no. 136 (1925), 12, he purchased either MFA accession no. 92.4955 or 92.4956 at the Greey sale. The other was purchased by a Costa Rican minister, but Morse subsequently acquired it and sold it to the MFA along with its mate.