Dining Set with Plum Blossoms and Cracked-Ice

Each item in this set has a delicate low-relief design of flowering plum branches over scattered, intersecting lines meant to resemble the cracked-ice surface of a frozen body of water and is signed on the base in gold pigment. While Yohei II produced many fine works in underglaze blue, like those produced by Kiyomizu Shichibei, he also made works in quite different styles later in his career, from the early 1870s. In 1873, he was appointed purveyor to the Industrial Center of Kyoto Prefecture, a designation associated with Kyoto’s efforts to reach an international market through the port of Kobe; and from 1875 until his death, he was involved in national-level projects to present Japanese ceramics across the world. It was during this period that Yohei III was apprenticed to Yohei II, and it has been suggested that this set may in fact be an early example of Yohei III’s work, which he signed with his teacher’s name.

Decorated with flowers resembling Japanese textile motifs, the set calls to mind the design of Yohei II’s pair of vases with plum blossoms in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Here, the elaborate trees created for a formal public exhibition setting have been translated into the approachable blossoms of the genteel domestic environment. While the designs are consistent across the pieces, each raised flower petal and pistil and each incised line in the ice was done by hand, so the cups, bowls, and dishes are similar yet unique.

The bottoms of two boxes once identified the set’s owner, but the information has been deliberately obscured with black ink. However, inscriptions still visible appear to indicate two occasions, once at the end of July 1886, and once again in June 1916, when parts of the set were requested from Hokura in Niigata Prefecture. The location corresponds to a neighborhood in the present-day city of Jōetsu. The surname Tsuji 辻 also appears on a paper tag affixed to one of the box cloths. Future research may possibly reveal more about their provenance. A vase by Yohei III in a private collection combines the formal grandeur of the Yohei II vases in the Victoria and Albert Museum with the gentler design of this dining set, placing flowering plum trees against soft, scalloped-edge clouds resembling those in golden screens.