Cleveland Museum of Art

Teacup from Teacups with Chinese Landscapes

Seifū Yohei IV

Date

1914–46

Medium

One from a set of eleven teacups; porcelain with underglaze blue

Culture

Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Originally from a set of 12, each of these 11 sencha teacups has a different landscape wrapped around the body, giving individual cups their own engaging narrative. These paintings are comfortingly familiar in their formulaic qualities, known to any casual fan of ink painting; they are also enjoyable in the way the narratives are revealed as one manipulates the cups. They would be perfect as conversation pieces for a tea gathering. Four of the cups focus on travelers approaching residences. Two have a person crossing a bridge as their central motif: one man has a backpack, and the other, a cloth-wrapped bundle hanging from a pole slung over his shoulder. Another cup depicts a pair of friends gathered together on rock platforms. A single cup shows a man carrying a furled banner toward a pavilion. The remaining three cups feature people riding in boats: two have literati passengers, and the third is occupied by a fisherman. Seifu Yohei IV’s training as a painter with Tanomura Shosai (1847–1909), an adoptive son of Tanomura Chokunyu, his father’s painting teacher, is evident in the details of the tiny worlds created on the cups. Seifū Yohei IV produced many works for use in Chinese-style tea gatherings called sencha .

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