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Hi,

I'm interested in this Sumida vase, seen on an antiques site. It's attributed to "Gozan" or "Sezan", but I can't figure out the signature, which is not Gozan nor Sezan in my opinion.
Has someone any idea which name it is and which characters, especially the 1st character.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Regards,
Martin.

I suggest that the name is in fact GoZan 娪山。 The first character is probably made up to create a name for a female artist. The female radical has been added to the phonetic 吾， which is pronounced Go.

That 吾 phonetic is attached to a number of different radicals to create different words. However, the character Go 娪 does not appear to have a meaning.

There are a number of occasions (particularly in China) where the female radical has been added to a phonetic element to create a name for a woman.

This is the mark of Hara Gozan (原娪山), which is shown in various forms on page 188 of the 2001 publication "Sumida According to Us", by Herbert Karp & Gardner Pond. The character "Go" (娪) is apparently obsolete but remains in the Unicode data base with its phonetic values. Hara Gozan gets credit among "other" Sumida potters working circa the Meiji-Taisho era, but additional information on him beyond the Gardner-Pond mention seems to be scarce. Here's a Bonhan's auction result for what looks to be one of his more intricate vases. Also pasted below, a link to the only kanji result for the complete name from my character search.

http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/p292338227/

Best regards,

Bill H.


URL Title :Hara Gozan

Bill and Mikeoz,

Very, very useful answers.
Thanks a lot for this, much appreciated.
Regards,
Martin.

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