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

Vase with Peonies (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:

This flower vase has a creamy white glaze infused with pink. Sadly, the box has been lost, so we cannot know how it was described by the studio. However, through comparison with other works, it is possible to surmise that the work can be categorized as kanpakuji with in-glaze pink. A single huge blossom shoots up into the widest part of the vessel, near the top, so it will be visible from a distance. If this design is displayed in a space with a decorative alcove located some distance away from the entrance, even at a remove, it can announce the taste of its owner and immediately please a guest. On the other side of the vase, two butterflies, their wings overlapping, flit through the sky.

Object facts

• Title: Vase with Peonies
• Date: 1900–1914
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei III (Japanese, 1851–1914)
• Culture: Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Porcelain with molded and carved design and pink-infused cream glaze
• Dimensions: height: 17.8 cm (7 in.); Diameter: 12.1 cm (4 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.198

A detail from the museum

One of Seifū Yohei III’s most visually impactful techniques was to combine complex low-relief designs in clay surrounded by diffused underglaze blue or pink, which he then covered with a transparent or translucent glaze.

Collection credit

Gift of James and Christine Heusinger

Further reading listed by the museum

• Vilbar, Sinead. "Colors of Kyoto: Modern ceramics of Japan.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 63, no. 2 (2023): 14-17.
• Maezaki, Shinya and Sinéad Vilbar. Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.
• Goodall, Hollis. "Seifū Yohei III: Master of Finesse." Impressions: The Journal of the Japanese Art Society of America 45, part 2 (2024): 178–193.

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.