The mark on the bottom does not look Chinese or Japanese, but not sure what it is (I'm not even sure what direction to look at it in). I'm not sure if the bowl is old or not. I've only found one picture of a bowl with this pattern online (on ETSY) and it was on the inside, but it didn't appear to have any pattern on the outside, and the mark on the bottom was different and somewhat sloppy/jerky compared to this one.
Any direction would be appreciated.
The mark looks like a Japanese mark and from these pictures it is hard to tell with such small photos, I can't see any age marks or the bottom foot or close up pictures of the decoration, but with what I can see it looks like 2nd half of the 20th century.
Thanks Stan,
I put copies of the full size versions up on dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hwqhyarll9moasn/AABBb0nN5CHaXa_ezbdEp2wxa?dl=0 if they help. I didn't take a better picture of the foot though as I had no idea what to look for when I took them. Thank you, you've given me a great place to start looking!
Gayle
Mark is Sanpo, a Japanese kiln.
Hi Peter, I have never heard of that kiln before, is it a modern kiln?
Sorry Stan, I wrote the 'on' reading, which is used by some names written with the same characters. But in this case the proper reading seems to be Mitsumine; same characters (??). Looks as if it were a small Showa era kiln. I have seen this mark many times, but otherwise know nothing about this.
Showa period I believe dates from 1926 to 1988.