Help with age of vases

[persnickety]

Hello. I was hoping you might be able to help with the age of these vases. They are a little over 11" tall. Thank you so much!

[peterp]

The blue characters are much too small to read.

[persnickety]

Thank you for taking the time to help. Here's a closer picture, but the characters themselves are blurry.

[peterp]

You could try to scratch the characters with a needle or similar. If the color comes off, then it is probably not a mark proper but something that was added after production. The characters remain illegible, blurred. With Chinese porcelain marks would normally be in the center, and under the glaze, with blue ones.

The tone of blue of the ring near the top points to the 20th century. The painting and colors themselves could be second quarter or later, in my view. If the characters on the bottom are really a mark, then this might be a different matter.

[persnickety]

I scratched the marks on both of the vases and they are under the glaze. Here is a picture of the bottom of the second vase. Unfortunately, it's more illegible than the first.

[persnickety]

Thank you, Peter. What does it mean if the mark is off center and under the glaze?

I am just starting to learn about Chinese porcelain and it's overwhelming. Are there any books that you would recommend for a beginner?

[peterp]

> Are there any books that you would recommend for a beginner?

Start with this site. That is the purpose for which it has been created. Unfortunately, there seems to be no other single resource that helps novices to get into the basics.