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Ming Vase?

by Pat
(Florida, USA)

Possible Ming Vase bottom

Possible Ming Vase bottom

Trying to figure out what these marks identify this vase as/from/is? Not sure what is the appropriate wording here. Just trying to start somewhere at identifying this small beautiful possibly Ming Vase. I do have other pictures of the vase if you need to see them. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Comments for Ming Vase?

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Jul 25, 2010
 vase
by: peter

Pat,
I am sure that this is not Chinese but rather Japanese, the pictures confirm it.
Please also be aware that transparency is not a sign of age. Some people will show you that an item is transparent or that it has some pattern visible when viewed under a light, but this does not mean it is old. This is related only to the thinness and composition of the clay and glaze, not age.
Jul 25, 2010
 Additional pictures
by: Pat

Apparently I'm a little to tired after my road trip and can't figure out how to get more pictures uploaded here..

And yes when you hold up the vase and look thru it with a light there is another picture in the porcelain bottom

So they are on flickr;
Images
Images
Images
Jul 25, 2010
 My thanks
by: Pat

Peter - thank you for all of the information. Very thorough and very beneficial. I am uploading more pictures of the vase.
Jul 25, 2010
 vase
by: peter

Hi Pat,
The only characters I can see are those of the mark, and they are all Chinese characters used by the Han Chinese. The Manchus had their own non-Chinese characters which sometimes are shown on porcelain also, but it looks completely different from Chinese.

The characters on the right are used both in Japan and China. In China this is mostly related to place names only, while in Japan it is BOTH a frequent family name and place name. (Why am I so sure? I speak both Chinese and Japanese and checked the names on the Japanese and Chinese Internet, just to make sure.)

Further:
1. The style of the mark is more likely to be Japanese.
2. The right column says who made the vase, the left one says who painted it. This is never expressed this way in Chinese porcelain, as far as I understand.
2. The last character (bottom character) of the left column means "painted". This character is a Japanese character. Traditional Chinese does not use this character, and in simplified Chinese although similar looking there is a slight difference compared to the Japanese version of the character.
Simplified characters would not have been in use in pre-communist China, that is before the fifties, which makes the vase modern or recent, if it were Chinese at all.
3. The bottom of this porcelain item cannot be very old judging from the glaze.
4. The type of wide, rounded foot rim used on the vase did never exist in ancient China as far as I am concerned.

If you want you can upload a full picture of the whole vase for checking on the decoration, but from the bit I can see of the painting it is unlikely to be Chinese.
Jul 25, 2010
 Additional
by: Pat

A friend has suggested that it may have been made in Manchuria based upon the right hand column of characters.
Jul 24, 2010
 vase
by: peter

Hello,
This is not an antique vase.
Either it is Japanese or modern, or both. The bottom and mark look Japanese, as does the little of decoration visible.

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