Water Container with Shell and Seaweed (1914–46): Art, History and Details

Water Container with Shell and Seaweed (1914–46) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Seifū Yohei IV (Japanese, 1872–1951).

The work and its context

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

Yohei IV chose an aquatic theme for this mizusashi. He applied clay to the surface and molded the shape of a large conch on one side and, on the other, a clam and a scallop. The finer details he incised into the surface of his low-relief shapes. He then painted seaweed as though it were coming out from behind the sea creatures, and he further set off the animals using a masking technique with a gradated blue surround. Finally, he applied a translucent blue glaze, identified on the box as mizusai, over the entire body of the vessel. The resulting effect is that one imagines having descended through the water to the ocean floor.

Object facts

• Title: Water Container with Shell and Seaweed
• Date: 1914–46
• Creator attribution: Seifū Yohei IV (Japanese, 1872–1951)
• Culture: Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912) or Taishō period (1912–26)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Porcelain with underglaze blue, blue glaze and molded design
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2022.212.a

A detail from the museum

A mizusashi, water container, is an essential utensil for a tea ceremony.

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.