Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries

Picked this up an estate sale for very little because we liked it, even though it's kind of ugly. Assume it's relatively modern. Has a mark, which looks like it might be form of seal script. Curious to know where it's from. Have found nothing like it online. Not even sure it's Asian. It looks like a curious pastiche (Han style tripod legs with serpent or dragon).

The mark appears to be upside down. When flipped , it possibly reads down and across from the right side in two stacks. The first two characters seem to be Yamaguchi (山口), the name of a prefecture with a pottery industry. The last two look like they may be 豆木, which also is listed as the place name Mameki but in a different part of Japan than Yamaguchi. It may be that I'm reading these last two characters incorrectly, so perhaps someone will come along and correct them.

Here's an image of two pottery dragon bookends with the same mark (not shown). I've had them for about 30 years and always suspected they were early 20th century Japanese works, but the poorly impressed marks eluded me, and I have let them sit untranslated. Perhaps we might both solve a mystery here.

Vest regards,

Bill H.

Hope this photo is better of the mark.

The new photo is great, and the characters still come across to me as "Yamaguchi Mameki" (山口豆木). Some Japanese art pottery makers who were productive before World War II either didn't resume their old businesses or were absorbed into larger ones, such as Noritake. To figure out what happened probably would take a bit of research by someone fluent in Japanese and with access to the proper archives.

Good luck,

Bill H.

Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries |