Vase with Dragon Roundels (1900–1914): Art, History and Details

Vase with Dragon Roundels (1900–1914) 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:

Each side of this lavender-colored vase is nearly covered with a low-relief design of a four-clawed dragon curled around a flaming jewel. The box lid carries an attestation by Yohei IV that the vase was produced by his predecessor, and the signature on the base is one Yohei III used later in his career. The lid also makes reference to Jun (J. Kin) ware, which was made in numerous kilns in what is now Yuzhou or Yuxian in Henan Province, China, during the Northern Song dynasty. Some Jun wares had an opalescent purple glaze, which was clearly the inspiration for the color seen on this vase.

Object facts

• Title: Vase with Dragon Roundels
• Date: 1900–1914
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei III (Japanese, 1851–1914)
• Culture: Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Porcelain with purple glaze and molded and carved design
• Dimensions: height: 15 cm (5 7/8 in.); Diameter: 10 cm (3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.236

A detail from the museum

Kyoto-based Japanese ceramist Seifū Yohei III (1851–1914) admired the glaze colors found on Chinese porcelain and tried to replicate them through intensive experimentation.

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.