Cleveland Museum of Art

Lid for a Teapot with Ruyi Motifs

Seifū Yohei III

Date

1893–1914

Medium

Porcelain with molded design and iron handles

Culture

Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The simple, round form of this teapot is embellished with only a pair of nyoi staff-head motifs, one on each side. Two arched iron handles, parallel to each other, are hooked through holes in raised tabs at the front and back of the shoulders of the pot. The round lid is depressed so that an iron ring handle fastened with an iron clamp passing through the lid can lie flat inside the recessed area. The box is not original to the piece and has an inscription dated to 1960. The person who wrote it clearly admired Yohei III and his efforts to produce works that resembled Chinese ceramics. The inscription describes Yohei’s journey to perfecting these copies but misidentified the Chinese kiln whose wares were the basis for this particular work. The base of the pot has a “Seifu” seal.

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