Japanese vase

[Stan]

Hi Peter, I am thinking of purchasing this, I was told that it is 17th century, however 17th century Japanese porcelain was rarely signed, but this is coming from a very well known dealer over here that deals is rare Japanese Porcelain, could you please let me know what it says and what you think, thanks.

[peterp]

Please look at www.chinese-antique-porcelain.com/chinese-export-porcelain.html, below where Japanese export is mentioned.
I cannot tell, however, from when this item is...the original mark has been used at least until the 19th century on Japanese made porcelain, I believe.
17th century? I have some doubts because the Japanese had not started making porcelain long before that. And then, it would have been used mainly on more useful purposes like bowls, plates, etc.  perhaps, instead on decorative items. Just my own considerations.

[Stan]

Can you read the characters?

[peterp]

Stan, being able to read the characters and knowing how they are read (in Japanese) is another matter. In Chinese one character has one reading (occasionally two), but Japanese has "on" and "kun" readings. "on" readings are readings are derivates from the Chinese pronunciation; a character may have several depending on when and where in China the reading comes from. Many were probably introduced by monks studying Buddhism in China, in the Sui, Tang and Song dynasties. A character can have several of each in general language, but may have others for names.
Here, the first four look like a Japanese name, while the latter looks Chinese. It is impossible to know which reading this has in Japanese, unless you know this specific one. In fact, even in today's Japanese some names (both personal or place names) characters can be read more than one way, depending on the person or case. One has to ask. This is because old and new readings do coexist, so that some names use the old while other used today's normal reading, etc. It's a bit complicated.

For example, many kiln names are related to the locations where they are located. It is necessary to ask or check the proper reading on the web for each one to get it right, but sometimes it is difficult to find.
Just to give an example, Mt. Ontake, the volcano that is erupting now has not thea regular reading.It would be called either Otake or Gotake if one of today's regular character readings was used.

I will rather stay with the Chinese reading, when it comes to old text like the one in the mark, as I do not have enough resources to know the proper reading of a Japanese style mark name of items made in a Chinese environment. The only I an say that this mark was used on Chinese porcelain, originally, and only on export for China.

[Stan]

Peter, My apologies, I misunderstood the dealer, it is late ming, made in Jingdezhen around 1628 t0 1644 it was commissioned by a Japanese tea master from the Edo period, the artist name is Goshenzui one of the five brothers " Gorodaiyu " Go family in Jingdezhen, with this information can you tell me if that is correct and if there is anything else that you can tell from this, the antique dealer says it is real and that he got it from an antique dealer in Japan.

[peterp]

Thanks for the Japanese reading. That makes it simpler.
"Gorodaiyu" is indeed a possible reading of the Japanese name, the part in the right column. "Goshenzui" appears to be the Japanese "on" reading for the Chinese name on the left. The laste character means "made".
The name character for "Go" is non-existent in Japanese, thus this has always been a problem, should it be read in Japanese or Chinese?

Fake shown on Jingdezhen website:
http://tinyurl.com/ltrxcs5
The website clearly says it is a fake, and other items in the results below also talk of fakes. So, the real thing may not be so easy to come by, no matter whether these fakes were made in JDZ or in Japan.

Item images from Google Japan (items with this mark):
http://tinyurl.com/k6ujnpv
However, most of the pictures in this search result seem to be coming from the Chinese internet. What conclusions can we draw from this?

I will put up a web page concerning the problem. I think this is a more appropriate space for explaining the complexity of this. I would take its content into consideration before you buy.
I still believe there is a problem with M&P.

[peterp]

Stan, please see the rest of my thoughts on this page:
www.chinese-antique-porcelain.com/ming-japan-export.html

Hope you buy this as a being Japanese, if you do. I would not recommend it, if you intend to buy a Chinese item. It is too 'risky'.

[Stan]

Yes good reading, I liked the part that says, why would the Japanese have anything made in China when they were quite capable of making it them selves, that is good reasoning, thank Peter for all your insight.