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Unlike most pieces by the Seifu Yohei studio, this one bears a seal beneath the handle rather than on the base. The glaze and technique are identified on the box as <em>taihakuji</em>, or “great white porcelain,” an important early invention Yohei III devised in 1872 that involved the combination of a distinctive translucent, creamy glaze over an ivory-colored clay body. <br><br>The body’s two sides have garden scenes seen through windows. Designs of flowers and butterflies are incised in the spaces at both ends. The garden on the right-hand side of the vessel, seen through a round window, has a decorative rock with grasses beneath a cloudy sky; and on a tiled veranda, there is a teapot as well as a fan and two scrolls inserted into a double-handled urn or kettle atop a brazier. The garden on the left-hand side has two enormous flowers below what may be either a cloud or a rippling pond; a garden rock—or perhaps a carved wood sculpture—with a circular perforation sits on what appears to be a veranda. While the details may be open to interpretation, the setting is a rather glamorous Chinese residence or palace with a superbly tended garden in spring or summer.