Collection Highlights

The rounded shoulders expand gently; the neck shoots up, opening into a wide mouth. This elegant form of fine-grained clay, covered in a veil of glaze, is gorgeous. The brown spots accent the lovely glaze, and, while their placement seems artless, generate a subtle balance. Celadon glazes with iron brown spots were developed at Longquan in fourteenth-century China, during the Yüan period. Known in Japan as tobi seiji, “scattered celadon,” they were particularly prized among men of tea. A similar piece, a National Treasure, is in the collection of the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka.