Sweets Bowl with Plum Tree
Medium
Porcelain with underglaze color and molded design
Dimensions
11.5 × 21.5 cm · diameter of foot 9.8 cm
Classification
Ceramic
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of James and Christine Heusinger
Accession Number
2022.242
Tags
About this artwork
In this sweets bowl, Yohei IV combines ink painting techniques with advanced glazing techniques. He has painted the gnarled boughs of a plum tree in iron oxide on the surface of the bowl. The tree’s blossoms are made slightly in relief by a build-up of slip. Their centers are painted with yellow. All of this is under a blue glaze that his father developed and named “evening moon” (tsukiyoi). Before applying the glaze, he would have covered the blossoms with paper so that they remained white. It ...