Cleveland Museum of Art

Long-Necked Vase

Seifū Yohei III

Date

1893–97

Medium

Stoneware with crackled glaze

Culture

Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The glazing of this long, narrow-necked and bulbous-based vase has a network of shallow cracks, created when the glaze fractured as it cooled from firing. It is called a cracked-ice pattern or glaze, since the effect resembles the surface of a frozen lake. The cracks here are of a consistently high density throughout the vessel. This pattern is observed also in the transparent glaze of some Kyoto ware, in some of Yohei III’s green glazes, and in some of his vessels emulating Chinese forms. The interior of the box lid has an attestation to its authenticity by Yohei IV, and the footring is inscribed Seifū of Great Japan (Dai Nihon Seifū) in iron black. Seifū Yohei III apprenticed in the Seifū studio, married into the family, and later adopted the Seifū Yohei name, when he became head of the studio.

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