Saucers (1893–1914): Art, History and Details

Saucers (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’s main output for his sophisticated clientele was in the form of tea sets and dining sets. He created a range of dishes in green glazes. He often produced in pairs, sets of five, or sets of ten. For this set of ten small dishes in a simple, round form that emphasizes the glaze above all, the box lid designates the piece as seiji, or green-glazed porcelain, using a general term for the extensive palette of green glazes often called celadon in English. The box lid further identifies the dishes themselves as tōchō, literally “bean-sized saucers,” a size that makes them suitable for dipping sauces.

Object facts

• Title: Saucers
• Date: 1893–1914
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei III (Japanese, 1851–1914)
• Culture: Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Set of ten saucers; porcelain with green glaze
• Dimensions: height (each): 2.5 cm (1 in.); diameter (each): 8 cm (3 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.187

A detail from the museum

The ten dishes in this set are stored in stacks of five in a two-compartment box.

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.