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Dining Set with Plum Blossoms and Cracked-Ice
Seifū Yohei II (Japanese, 1844–1878)
1875–78
- Medium
- Porcelain with molded designs
- Classification
- Ceramic
- Dimensions
- (each) small dish: 2.9 x 11.5 cm (1 1/8 x 4 1/2 in.); (each) medium dish: 3.2 x 16.4 cm (1 1/4 x 6 7/16 in.); (each) drinking cup: 6.7 x 9.3 cm (2 5/8 x 3 11/16 in.); (each) covered bowl: 7.5 x 11.5 cm (2 15/16 x 4 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Edo period (1615–1868) to Meiji period (1868–1912)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Gift of James and Christine Heusinger
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Each item in this set has a delicate low-relief design of flowering plum branches over scattered, intersecting lines meant to resemble the cracked-ice surface of a frozen body of water and is signed on the base in gold pigment. While Yohei II produced many fine works in underglaze blue, like those produced by Kiyomizu Shichibei, he also made works in quite different styles later in his career, from the early 1870 s. In 1873, he was appointed purveyor to the Industrial Center of Kyoto Prefecture, a designation associated with Kyoto’s efforts to reach an international market through the port of Kobe; and from 1875 until his death, he was involved in national-level projects to present Japanese ceramics across the world. It was during this period that Yohei III was apprenticed to Yohei II, and it has been suggested that this set may in fact be an early example of Yohei III’s work, which he signed with his teacher’s name.
Decorated with flowers resembling Japanese textile motifs, the set calls to mind the design of Yohei II’s pair of vases with plum blossoms in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Here, the elaborate trees created for a formal public exhibition setting…
