Chinese (?) Lidded Vase

[TKNZ]

Hi all,

I bought this red vase/urn/jar (not sure which) in Japan. I believe it is probably Chinese, but given the catfish and wading bird motifs I have also found myself wondering if it is Southeast Asian...
I don't think it's a modern fake of anything as it doesn't seem to have any obvious signs of fake ageing and it doesn't look very new, either. The wooden box I received it in had a yellowed newspaper from the 1950s as cushioning at the bottom, so I'd say if it is modern it at least isn't older than that.

I tried to find anything similar, with both moulded and incised design along with a similar monochrome peachy-red/pink glaze, and came up short. It looked most similar to items from the Liao dynasty, although that's a very far stretch. The glaze has sparse and sporadic dark green spots on it, and although this could be thought of as a 'peach bloom' glaze I think that more likely than anything else the piece was contaminated by something in the kiln. It is about 28cm high.
If anyone has any comment as to potential style, age, origin etc., it would be much appreciated! My 3 thoughts are that it's either a fake of a style I'm unaware of, an original of a style I'm unaware of, or a modern fantasy piece.

Thanks,
Thomas.

[Stan]

This looks fairly modern to me, it could be Japanese as well but I am not sure about that.

[peterp]

I would recommend to also look at SE Asian styles. Does not look traditional Chinese or Japanese, but could also be relatively modern as Stan said.

[TKNZ]

Hi Stan & Peter,

Thanks for your input and for ruling out a Chinese origin from my inquiries - I'll have a look into SE Asian styles a bit more. In person it seems quite old with a lot of incidental wear, so I don't think it's modern in the sense of being art pottery etc. I wondered if it was fake-aged to appear earlier than it is, but to me it wouldn't make sense to do that to a piece that wasn't a traditional style (hence why I thought it might be a fantasy piece that someone 'antiqued'). I'll also have a look at some of the more obscure Japanese styles. All in all it's still a bit of a mystery to me...

Thanks,
Thomas.

[peterp]

My definition of modern is post-Qing and after the early republic period. The latter still shows some traditional features until about the 1930s, but from the 1940s onward there is often some significant change in styles and/or colors visible.

[peterp]

There is a feature that I only now noticed. There is a lip on the unglazed clay just below the glaze. I would be grateful if you would let me know in the event that you find out anything about the origin of this item. I have an old tea bowl which has such a lip, and we have never seen this on any porcelain before...that is except on two or three instances.

One such lip is on a kind of jardiniere from a shipwreck lifted near the Korean coast. The predominantly Chinese cargo seems to indicate that it may have been bound for Japan, coming from China, but the kiln making it in China is one of the lesser known kilns and it is difficult to find more details. Then I have seen the lip on a Cambodian jar, and another one on a tea bowl which appears to be from Karatsu (??); the problem is that a place of that name did and still does exist both in Japan and Korea. The bowl was  bought in Japan, but they also have Korean porcelain there.

[TKNZ]

Hi Peter,

I'll be sure to post about it if I ever find out more about the origin, though I doubt I ever will!
The glaze is convincingly 'old', although the base and interior of the vase are uncomfortably clean (although, if it was exported to Japan as an art object and never actually used, that might be permissible).
I took some more photos, but due to the limitations of uploading them here I can only supply them as an Imgur link. I tried to get some better ones of the base and glaze if that reveals anything to you. m.imgur.com/a/9he1FJG

Thanks,
Thomas.

[peterp]

If with "old" you mean the crackling, then I have to tell you that even freshly out of the kiln items can have them, and often do. They are just less visible to the naked eye. What is interesting is the green dots which point to a mineral origin of the red glaze color. Red and green are the result of copper or iron based glazes. Otherwise, the pot looks unused although it probably is not brand new.

[TKNZ]

Hi Peter,

By 'old' I was referring more to the large amount of abrasion to the glaze at varying directions and depths, which might not have come across well in the photos. But you're right in saying that it looks otherwise unused, which is why I found the piece quite confusing...
Of course, it could just be a 'soft' glaze prone to excessive wear, or someone may have gone over it with varying grits of sandpaper at some point in an effort to make it look old, although to my eye the wear looked incidental and not intentional.
At the moment my money is on a fantasy piece from perhaps the 30s.

Thanks,
Thomas.