Tea Bowl

Tsujimura Shiro

Brooklyn Museum photograph

Object Label

In these two richly decorated paintings from the Viceroyalty of Peru, worshippers gather in devotion around the Virgin Mary. Both images feature the Indigenous donors—identifiable by their traditional Andean dress—who commissioned the respective paintings.

Members of the Indigenous elite occupied a precarious place in the Spanish Americas. Referred to by Spanish officials as indios amigos (friendly Indians), they retained cultural customs that were widely displaced by colonization and navigated the imposition of Catholicism—a practice that allowed them to maintain a degree of their pre-Conquest prestige. The complexity and instability of racial hierarchies is further illustrated by the solemn young figure at the bottom right of The Virgin Mary with Christ Child, Saint Dominic, Saint Francis, and Indigenous Donors, whom some scholars interpret as the Andean worshippers’ free or enslaved servant.

Caption

Tsujimura Shiro Japanese, born 1947. Tea Bowl, 2001. Stoneware, Ido style glaze, 3 7/16 x 7 1/4 in. (8.7 x 18.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Koichi Yanagi, 2003.67.3. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2003.67.3_transp6311.jpg)

Gallery

Not on view

Collection

Asian Art

Title

Tea Bowl

Date

2001

Period

Heisei Period

Geography

Place made: Japan

Medium

Stoneware, Ido style glaze

Classification

Ceramic

Dimensions

3 7/16 x 7 1/4 in. (8.7 x 18.4 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Koichi Yanagi

Accession Number

2003.67.3

Rights

Creative Commons-BY

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