Large Japanese Arita Imari Blue and White bowl

[Stan]

Hi Mat, I won this at a local auction, it is 46.4 cm across , I can not find this mark in my books but from the looks of it I would say late Meiji, 1890's according to the foot and blue color, can you recognize the mark, thanks.

[Stan]

Could it be Owari Sei? if it is it would be from Seto area not Arita, if that is the case this would be the first time I have seen Seto ware marked the same way as Arita ware with the 4 rings on the bottom.

[Mat]

Hi Stan, it looks like "??"? The second Kanji is "sei", "made". The first one would be also "sei", but with the meaning of "bright, clear". But maybe Peter could check this, I am not totally sure of the first character. I do not think it is Owari, looks more like Arita ware...

[Stan]

Thanks Mat, in one of my books it said that the artist or maker often during the Meiji period would sign their porcelain this way the sei meaning a lot of care went into making this piece, I agree this looks more like Arita ware than Seto but it was the only mark I could find that resembled the mark, here is a picture of the front or inside the bowl.

[peterp]

Purely referring to the mark, ?? is not something to be found easily. ? is part of a name but there are too many possibilities. It could be part of the name of the porcelain painter or shop. There should be at least two characters, otherwise there are just too many possiblities. There are scores of names using this character.

[Stan]

Thanks Peter, I have been racking my brains trying ti figure it out, I agree I have found several other similar marks but with other characters, Sei Seisu is what I came up with, I wonder why they did not give their full name, it is all hand painted and imitating the Kangxi 5 colors of blue.

[peterp]

Possibly for the same reason as you use 'Stan' and not your full name. :-)
Everyone in the area probably knew anyway who it is. And there is something like artist's names, which are sometimes completely different from the real name.
The "Ninsei" in the other post could as well have signed "Sei", like this one. It is not even his original name, it seems. But "Sei" was part of his real name, which he did not use for signing his work.

Really difficult to tell. Nowadays the Japanese have a tendency to sign with their family name only. Who knows how it was then, and in that environment.