Okame or large, wide-mouthed storage jar of Echizen ware stoneware with white, natural ash glaze deposits powdered densely across the front. Marked on the shoulder with a three-prong comb-form, incised kiln mark. Muromachi period, circa 15th – early 16th century.

For another Muromachi period jar with this kiln mark in the collections of the Fukui Prefectural Museum of Ceramics, c.f. Echizen: Eight Hundred Years of Japanese Stoneware, page 58, number 6.

This powerful jar suggests a snowstorm. Dramatic keishiki or “scenery” crusts the shoulders with cream and speckled brown, creating a central cascade of white ash down the face.