Teapot with Pines (1893–1914): Art, History and Details

Teapot with Pines (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:

Side-handled teapots known as kyūsu and hot water coolers, or yuzamashi, are essential components of sencha tea sets. The teapot is, of course, meant for steeping and serving the tea. Yuzamashi are used to cool boiled water to the ideal temperature for the type of tea to be brewed. This teapot has a pine in underglaze blue on each side. The tip of one of these pines reaches onto the tiny lid, and as with the trees on the Water Cooler with Pines, CMA 2022.163, the trunks are curvy ribbons with little definition. Considering the execution of the two vessels' designs, one might imagine the pot and cooler to have been part of the same set.

Object facts

• Title: Teapot with Pines
• Date: 1893–1914
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei III (Japanese, 1851–1914)
• Culture: Japan
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Porcelain with underglaze blue
• Dimensions: height with lid: 8 cm (3 1/8 in.); width with handle: 10.5 cm (4 1/8 in.); Diameter: 8 cm (3 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.162

A detail from the museum

This teapot with images of pines are among Seifū Yohei III’s designs painted in blue.

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.