When Charles Lang Freer first encountered Asian art, he was particularly intrigued by Japanese paintings, stoneware ceramics, and tea-ceremony items. While other enthusiasts were focusing on popular collectibles such as netsuke, dolls, woodblock prints, and enameled porcelain, Freer’s first Asian art purchase in 1887 was a painted Japanese fan. Between 1894 and 1911, Freer made four extended visits to Japan, and, by the time of his death in 1919, had collected over two thousand works of Japanese art. Spanning more than four millennia, the Japanese art collection has since quadrupled in size since Freer's death, and is especially rich in paintings and ceramics from the twelfth to the nineteenth century.
GO BACK THROUGH TIME WITH CHINESE ART
The Freer and Sackler galleries boast one of the finest museum collections of Chinese art outside of China, with over ten thousand objects dating from Neolithic times (ca. 7000–ca. 2000 B.C.E.) to the present. While the sheer number of items is impressive, it is their variety and quality that is truly remarkable, with nearly every medium and category of Chinese art represented.
UNDERSTATED ELEGANCE OF KOREAN CERAMICS
The simple forms, spare decoration, and monochrome glazes of the Choson period (1392–1910) Korean tea bowls used in Japan first attracted Charles Lang Freer to Korean ceramics. He expanded his collection to include celadon ceramics from the Koryo dynasty (918–1392), which had once adorned palaces, Buddhist temples, and private residences of the aristocracy. During the last twenty years of his life Freer acquired nearly 500 Korean art objects, including approximately 130 Koryo and eighty Choson ceramic pieces. When the Freer Gallery of Art opened its doors in 1923, Freer’s assembly of Korean art was considered unparalleled in quality and historical scope.