Cleveland Museum of Art

Bowl with Numinous Fungi and Kirin

Seifū Yohei III

Date

1893–1900

Medium

Porcelain with cobalt blue glaze, overglaze color enamel, and silver painting overlay

Culture

Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The complex design of this bowl is also technically sophisticated in its execution. On the interior, Yohei III has placed a mythical beast called a kirin (Chinese, qilin ) within a double-banded circle painted in cobalt blue under the glaze. Around the interior of the mouth, bordered at top and bottom with underglaze blue under a brown iron oxide painted rim, he has painted a continuous coin pattern with a red wash and green color enamels. The pattern is further defined and embellished with black iron outlining the green- and gold-painted diamonds over the diluted red. The inside is otherwise left white. On the exterior, the body has a dark blue glaze and an overlaid silver design of reishi with incised lines for detail. Inside the bowl is an auspicious, mythical deerlike creature called kirin in Japanese (麒麟 or qilin in Chinese).

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