Flower Vase with Phoenix in Paulownia (1897–1914): Art, History and Details

Flower Vase with Phoenix in Paulownia (1897–1914) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Seifū Yohei III (Japanese, 1851–1914).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The phoenix’s commanding presence on this vase was created by adding clay to the surface of the white clay body and then intricately molding and carving it. Then cobalt blue was used to paint the paulownia tree upon which the phoenix perches. Yohei III used a masking technique, covering the phoenix with paper before adding pink color to the area surrounding it. Firing with an allover transparent glaze created a glossy surface, with the phoenix standing out boldly from the background. The mythical bird’s long tail sweeps majestically around the vessel so that one must move around it to see the eyespots in its plumes. A symbol of imperial power in both China and Japan, the phoenix is said to alight only in the paulownia tree. Upon close inspection of its face, one can see that the phoenix’s eye is in yellow under the glaze. The scene is set off at the bottom with a double band of underglaze blue above an incised ring of cloud. Once Yohei III had created his creamy translucent taihakuji glaze, he began applying it over the entire surface of an ivory clay body with motifs in low relief to achieve a creamy white-on-white design. He then began using the combination of gradated pink around raised motifs on a typical white porcelain clay body like the one for this vase. He masked his low-relief designs with paper before sprinkling diluted iron oxide glaze onto the surrounding areas through a net with a brush. These unpigmented elements stand out as starkly white against the gentle pink blush color that surrounds them. Still later, he added pink to the translucent creamy glaze he used in kanpakuji works and used it over motifs in relief on an ivory clay body for an overall pink-tinged cream effect (see CMA 2022.198).

Object facts

• Title: Flower Vase with Phoenix in Paulownia
• Date: 1897–1914
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei III (Japanese, 1851–1914)
• Culture: Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Porcelain with molded and carved design and underglaze color
• Dimensions: Overall: 20.6 cm (8 1/8 in.); Diameter: 15.9 cm (6 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.199

A detail from the museum

In 1893, Seifū Yohei III became the first ceramist to be appointed as an Imperial Household Artist under a system introduced by the Japanese government in 1890.

Collection credit

Gift of James and Christine Heusinger

Further reading listed by the museum

• Maezaki, Shinya and Sinéad Vilbar. Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.
• Goodall, Hollis. "Seifū Yohei III: Master of Finesse." Impressions: The Journal of the Japanese Art Society of America 45, part 2 (2024): 178-193.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.