Sake Cups with Auspicious Flora (1861–78): Art, History and Details

Sake Cups with Auspicious Flora (1861–78) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Seifū Yohei II (Japanese, 1844–1878).

The work and its context

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

Seifū Yohei II and his successor, Seifū Yohei III, trained in ink painting. Their brush skills are seen in their underglaze cobalt blue designs. One of Yohei II’s sake cups has depictions of orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum, representing spring, summer, and fall, while the other has pine and plum, representing winter. Just under the rim, he has also brushed the phrase “Pine, plum, and fungus immortals” (松梅芝仙).

Object facts

• Title: Sake Cups with Auspicious Flora
• Date: 1861–78
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei II (Japanese, 1844–1878)
• Culture: Japan
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Pair of sake cups; porcelain with underglaze blue
• Dimensions: height (each): 3 cm (1 3/16 in.); diameter (each): 7 cm (2 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.145

A detail from the museum

These modest cups are important for the connoisseurship of the art of Yohei II because their original box is intact with a signature and seal on the interior of the lid.

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.