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Medicine Bottle
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
While inspired by medicine jars used in European pharmacies, this bottle was likely decorative. It may have been exported by the Dutch East India Company, a powerful trading company from the Netherlands. In Japan, it operated from Deshima, a man-made island in Nagasaki harbor created in 1636. The initials “I. C.” appear on the base. As the letter J was often transposed with the letter I in Europe of the 1600s, some scholars believe the bottle may have been made for Johannes Camphuys (1634–1695), who was in charge of the Dutch East India Company’s operations in Deshima in 1671.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineMedicine Bottle (薬瓶), 1670s. Japan, Edo period (1615–1868). Porcelain with underglaze blue decoration; height: 41.3 cm (16 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Severance A. Millikin, 1966.514
