Korean celadon ewer shaped like a bamboo shoot, 12th century, on a dark ground

A museum of vessels
Thursday to Sunday, free entry
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Everything here was made to hold something.

Water

Water jars
Ewers
Glass bottles
Water droppers

Gallery 1. Jars and ewers for carrying, pouring and keeping water.

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Korean celadon ewer with bamboo fluting, early 13th century

Athenian red-figure water jar, a hydria, 470 to 460 BCE

Grain

Granary urns
Storage jars
Measures
Seed pots

Gallery 2. Stores for the harvest, and for the life after it.

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Greek black-figure storage jar, a pelike, about 510 to 500 BCE

Chinese funerary urn, a hunping, crowded with modelled figures and buildings, late 3rd century

Gallery 3. Vessels for storing, mixing and pouring wine.

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Korean celadon plum vase, a maebyeong, inlaid with cranes and clouds, late 12th century

Athenian black-figure belly amphora, 550 to 540 BCE

Tea

Tea bowls
Tea caddies
Kettles
Whisks and scoops

Gallery 4. Bowls glazed for the colour of whisked tea.

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Chinese Jian ware tea bowl with a streaked hare's fur glaze, 12th century

Light

Oil lamps
Mosque lamps
Lanterns
Candlesticks

Gallery 5. Lamps that held oil, and the light it gave.

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Chinese oil lamp shaped like a fish, glazed in three colours, 8th century

Syrian mosque lamp of blown glass with enamel and gilding, 14th century

Shown by use, not by century.

Hold. Pour.
Store. Light.

Most museums arrange pots by period and place. Held arranges them by what they carried, so a Song dynasty tea bowl sits beside one fired in Kyoto six centuries later, and an Athenian water jar faces a Korean ewer made seventeen centuries after it. The galleries are small, the labels are short, and most pieces can be seen from every side.

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