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Hello! The below vase was a wedding gift I received with very little information other than that it was picked up in either China or Korea mid 20th century.

really curious on the date as ive never seen anything with this style of figurines attached. also i love the glazing dripping down from the top to form the mountains. any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Link :photographs uploaded to imgur.com

This is Japanese Sumida Gawa ware with an applied blue & white potter's mark on its side of Inoue Ryosai III (1888-1971). Your vase probably dates to circa 1925 or somewhat later. Ryosai didn't resume commercial production after WW-II but made some studio pottery, per the veritable Bible of Sumida collectors, "Sumida According to Us" by Herbert Karp and Gardner Pond (2001), ISBN No. 1-57080-085-5 (PB) & ISBN No. 1-57808-086-3 (HB).

Suggest you also check out this write-up at gotheborg.com:

http://gotheborg.com/marks/sumida.shtml

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thanks for the response bill. I saw the same site in my searches after making this post as you can probably see by now due to the delay. How are you able to differentiate between Ryosai Sr, Jr, and iii? I thought they all had the same mark, so I assume stylistic differences?

i guess i figured it out with some internet sluething... its japanese sumida gawa pottery. the artist signature is that of Inoue Ryosai, but that name was used by father, son and grandson. supposedly it is pre 1920 because of how it was labeled. im guessing that means it was by Ryosai sr. or ryosai jr, not ryosai III.

if anybody has any information on value i would be appreciative. ebay and auction sites seem to range from 50 up to 1000

Ryosai I died in 1899, and Ryosai II in 1905. At age 17, Ryosai III assumed his father's potter's name as well as management of the kiln.

Since the purpose of the operation was to make export ware, there's probably little reason to assume that stocks of Ryosai I and II-marked pieces were available in large numbers during the 1920s, though I suppose there may have been some in the hands of domestic Japanese collectors. The Karp & Pond book on Sumida includes clips from catalogs of the U.S. importing company A.A. Vantine, showing pieces of this pottery made between 1916 and circa 1924, including a vase that looks to be quite like yours in form and decoration.

Ryosai III had moved the kiln from the Tokyo area to Yokohama in 1914, where it was destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and subsequently rebuilt. Thus it might be postulated that the bulk of any Sumida ware obtained in Japan during the mid-20th century probably was made at the Ryosai III kiln between about 1924 and 1941, when it shut down for the duration of the war.

I'm unsure of the basis for your assumptions of age made on the basis of labeling. Marking of Japanese exports was driven to no small extent by changes in U.S. customs law, which by 1920 permitted paper labeling and bulk clearance of case lots. Thus the Japanese markings could follow old kanji forms without infringing on the law.

Best regards,

Bill H.

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