Spouted vessel

From Hokkaidō, Japan
Final Jōmon period, around 1000 BC

The structure of this vessel is technically advanced for a hand-made object. It is a particularly fine example of cord-patterned decoration, executed in carved zones over low burnished areas.

This piece was acquired in the northern island of Hokkaidō by Heinrich von Sieblod in the 1870s. He was the second son of the German doctor Franz von Siebold who was in Japan from 1823 to 1829.

A hole in the base suggests that the vessel may have been spoiled deliberately for ritual funerary use.

L. Smith, V. Harris and T. Clark, Japanese art: masterpieces in (London, The British Museum Press, 1990)