Tortoises Sake Pourer from Sake Pourers with Crane and Tortoises
Medium
One of a pair of sake flasks; porcelain with overglaze color enamel
Dimensions
h. 13.7 cm
Classification
Ceramic
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of James and Christine Heusinger
Accession Number
2022.159.2
Tags
About this artwork
This flask has stencil-like paintings of three turtles—a young one with its parents—while the other in this pair has a crane with a leg raised. Cranes and turtles are well-recognized symbols of longevity in East Asia, with the turtle said to live for ten thousand years and the crane for one thousand. Each flask also has a poem on the back, one in Chinese and the other in Japanese. The latter, which appears on the turtle flask, reads kame iwaku kamiyo wa, ore no wakaki toki. The seventeen syllabl...