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Herewith from a friend's collection are three photos of a bowl, about 10-inches diameter, possibly bronze, with four-character seal-script mark that looks to read down and across from the top right in Japanese as 山縣鑄製 (Yamagata Chu Sei – also found rendered online as Yamagata-Imono Sei). This would seem to be translatable as “Made by Yamagata Foundry” or “Made by Yamagata Founder”, with Yamagata being a prefecture on the Northwestern coast of Hokkaido. However, I'm not entirely sure I've identified the third character correctly.

Yamagata Prefecture actually is a three-character name (山形県), the last character being the Japanese variant of 縣 (prefecture) and pronounced "Ken". I gather that 山縣 is used as an abbreviation for the prefecture name but would like confirmation of the assumption.

Yamagata seems to be known for its metal-casting industry, although the kettles called tetsubin seem to make up a lot of its modern production. This bowl also looks to be more like the product of a Japanese metal fabrication and finishing factory. I'm not certain how this squares with use of the character 鑄 (casting) in the mark, so would especially appreciate comments on this point.

Thanks,

Bill H.

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