Lid for an Incense Burner with Flowers and Dots (1893–1914): Art, History and Details

Lid for an Incense Burner with Flowers and Dots (1893–1914) 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:

Yohei III made incense burners in a wide variety of designs and styles. The body and glaze of this one are taihakuji, or “great white porcelain,” an important early invention Yohei III devised in 1872 that involved the combination of a distinctive translucent, creamy glaze over an ivory-colored clay body. The silver lid is meant to look like a single flower. The vessel has tapering legs with a combined curvilinear and geometric design; the bands encircling the middle have simple, incised flower motifs alternating with single dots.

Object facts

• Title: Lid for an Incense Burner with Flowers and Dots
• Date: 1893–1914
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei III (Japanese, 1851–1914)
• Culture: Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Silver
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.180.b

A detail from the museum

The silver lid was produced outside the studio by metalwork specialists.

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.

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.