Bowl

Location: Japan

Materials: earthenware, painted and gilded

Dimensions: 15 x 15.8 cm

Accession Number: S 30

Other Notes:

An earthenware bowl, the exterior painted with a yatai matsuri procession of numerous figures pulling ceremonial wagons and carrying a model of Mount Fuji, many holding fans painted with the setting sun, some holding banners, the lower part painted with panels of birds among flowers on a millefleurs ground. The interior with butterflies beneath trailing flowers and foliage.

In a discreet effort at self-advertisement, one of the banners carried in the procession shown on this vase has been inscribed Dai Meizan (Great Meizan). An almost identical bowl was exhibited at the Japan-British Exhibition, London 1910.

Bibliography:

O. Impey, M. Fairley (eds.), Meiji No Takara: Treasures Of Imperial Japan: Ceramics Vol II, London 1995, cat. 83.
J. Earle, Splendors of Imperial Japan: Arts of the Meiji period from the Khalili Collection, London 2002, cat. 103, pp. 160–1.