High-Footed Bowl with Lotus Pond
Seifū Yohei III (Japanese, 1851–1914)
1887–92
- Medium
- Porcelain with underglaze color and modeled designs
- Classification
- Ceramic
- Dimensions
- height: 10 cm (3 15/16 in.); Diameter: 23 cm (9 1/16 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, 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
Seifū Yohei III was the most prominent head of a ceramics studio in Kyoto that specialized in Chinese-style porcelains and especially items for use in sencha (煎茶), or the drinking of steeped-leaf tea with companions. Sencha was popular among the bunjin of Kyoto and Osaka, who often enjoyed it as part of their emulation of Chinese culture. While sencha was by design less formal than the Japanese tea ceremony, it still featured the display of treasured objects. Prized Chinese antiquities were generally unobtainable, so substitutes such as the Gu-Shaped Flower Vase, CMA 2022.224, were much in demand. Bowls for distributing sweets, like this one, were also a staple of sencha gatherings.
