Nesting Dishes with Scattered Pine Needles and Maple Leaves (1861–78): Art, History and Details

Nesting Dishes with Scattered Pine Needles and Maple Leaves (1861–78) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Seifū Yohei I (Japanese, 1801–1861).

The work and its context

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

Seifū Yohei I made both blue and white porcelains after Ming dynasty (1368–1644) Chinese wares fired in the kilns at Jingdezhen for export. He also made colorful stoneware in the style of his teacher, Nin’ami Dōhachi (Takahashi Dōhachi II) (1783–1855).

Object facts

• Title: Nesting Dishes with Scattered Pine Needles and Maple Leaves
• Date: 1861–78
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei I (Japanese, 1801–1861)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Pair of dishes; stoneware with underglaze blue, iron oxide, slip, and crackled glaze, and overglaze color enamel
• Dimensions: inner dish: 6.7 x 14.4 x 11.5 cm (2 5/8 x 5 11/16 x 4 1/2 in.); outer dish: 7.5 x 15.3 x 12.7 cm (2 15/16 x 6 x 5 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.147

A detail from the museum

The combination of the blue and brown for the needles imparts a sense of depth to the design, with the blue needles apparently at a greater distance.

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.