Is this Chinese or japanese and is their a date

[peterp]

BTW, do you know what this item is? This is called a Cong vase in the west although a translation as Cong bottle would be more accurate.
Cong vessels were originally archaic ritual vessels made of jade, used for ceremonies. The Song dynasty is the actual beginning of these square shaped as ceramics.

[Stan]

So it is called a Cong bottle, thanks Peter.

[peterp]

The term is not necessarily accurate, neither the English nor the Chinese (bottle/vase) describes its shape. The one you have is oblong, but the original ones were short and wide, nothing of a bottle shape.
This one is one is in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. It is one of only three originals in museums (Southern Song dynasty Guan kiln), China has none (!).
https://theme.npm.edu.tw/opendata/DigitImageSets.aspx?sNo=04014508

All the oblong ones seem to have been made at Longquan kiln in that era. But later lots of them were made at various times and places, more for their decorative value than the purpose of a ritual item.

[Stan]

Hi Peter, I googled Chinese marks and came up with an identical mark as this dose this say " Jingdezhen Yishu Ci Chang or
( Cichang ) Chu Pin (product of Jingdezhen Art or (craft) Porcelain Factory, if it is it is dated 1963.
BTW can you tell me anything about the artist, thanks.

[peterp]

First, I changed the link of my post below. The link is not accessible now. It might have been a dynamic search result. The new link is the result of a Chinese language search directly in the database of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

Copies of these Cong vases were originally made already in the Southern Song dynasty, mainly by Longquan kiln. They also excelled in the more narrow but higher variations.
But afterwards copies and variations of the Cong were made throughout imperial times, and also later, until now.  And not only by Longquan. The Guan and Longquan kilns were gone hundreds of years ago, and such items were made at Jingdezhen kilns, and possibly also at others.
The date you mention for the mark could be about right. The original decoration was a plain or crackled monochrome color. Those with painted decorations appeared later. Not sure if there were any in imperial times. Cong vases are still being made, currently it seems, and the 60s may well have seen many of those with a more Japanese motif. There are other porcelain items with this style.

The marks seem to be authentic producers, but I cannot help with artists. Chinese production is/was seldom (except Qianjiang, perhaps) the result of a single person, it was more like a collective, hand-made mass production. Some would make the body, others would do the glaze, painting, etc. With porcelain painting too different items in the same decoration would be made by different painters (not necessarily artists). Some would paint the people only, the clouds or the trees, the houses, etc. . Thus complex decorations were often painted by multiple craftspeople not single artists. And this was also the case later until now, I assume. This is different from Japanese porcelain where individual artisans often sign(ed) their works.  In China you see this seldom, except on Qianjiang porcelain. Those items with artist's names on them were often signed the same way later too, so it is now sometimes difficult to tell if something is original or a later fake.

[Stan]

Thanks Peter, I will see if I can find anything else by Yishu Ci Chang, I can't imagine someone as skilled a painter copying something from the 60's but it happens if they are well known.

[Stan]

Hi Peter, I looked on Christies under Chu-Pin and found a set of porcelain panels that sold for $140,000. Now I see why you think it is a fake, I did not know it was a Qianjang painter.

[peterp]

You misunderstood me. I do not mean it is a fake, it could be just an item from the 60s, that is vintage; it would not be a fake as similar items were hardly made in imperial times. Such things are more likely original, as they were using foreign ideas and styles in their painting by then.
出品 chupin, if that is the characters used, that means just "made" or "product of". There must be the name of the manufacturer or location before that. Like for example "Jiangxi Porcelain Co." or something like this, would become Product of ...
There must be more characters if Chu-Pin is written with these characters.

[peterp]

The fact alone that a mark uses the terms "Jingdezhen, Factory, Product of, Co. (company)" or similar means item is probably 1940s or later, as many kilns (some earlier) then had changed to a factory/company style production system, especially in Jingdezhen. Including of course the state-owned ones of the later time.
That is items with marks using one of these terms are more often than not only vintage, even if the mark may look old. There may be exceptions, though.

[Stan]

Thanks Peter for the explanation, I know a little more about the Cong Bottle Vase, thanks for all your expertise.

[peterp]

Thanks Stan. I like this subject because I spent much time in the last three years researching Cong vases/bottles. There is one I would like to have an elemental analysis done for, because even among appraisers and museum experts few can tell for sure if it is authentic. But even a place for doing such an analysis is difficult to find.