Minneapolis Institute of Art

Bowl with Cross Design

Japan

Date

17th century

Medium

Hagi ware, glazed stoneware

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The first Christian missionaries, namely Portuguese Catholics, arrived in Japan in the late 1540s and achieved success converting Christians in some areas of the country. Christians were persecuted by authority of Japan’s military leaders on and off through the 1630s, by which time all adherents of Christianity had renounced their faith or moved underground. Stoneware bowls bearing Christian crosses began to be made in the early seventeenth century, but it remains unclear who might have used such bowls. Asia

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