Unusual Bird Orchid Bowl with Four-Bat Border Mark? Age"

[Kaaren B.]

I found this bowl today. It has some damage on the back but not visible from the front.

It has four bats on each side under the rim, outlined in gold, but the gold has faded from three of the bats.

I thought the work very beautiful, and the painting is raised, you can feel it, especially on the irises. 

Any thoughts on the mark or age appreciated! Thank you! Kaaren

[peterp]

The mark is upside down. Below are the characters 竹 雪, not sure what the top one depicts, or if it should be two, as it is written in a fancy style.

[Stan]

Hi Kaaren, the decoration looks printed to me, I can't tell for sure but if you can magnify it with a loop you would see the decoration is made up of dots, but if it is hand painted there would be no dots and under a loop you would see brush marks if hand painted, dots would make it on the later side.

[Kaaren B.]

Hi, Stan and Peter, thank you for answering. 

I have a 10X jeweler's loup, and the paintwork on this is raised, you can feel the paint with your fingers, particularly in the center of the iris petals and on the outline of the petals. You can both see with the loupe pink and white paint "blobs". You can see the paint "bubbles" on the petals with the loupe.

Also, you can see with the loupe that some of the green paint of the iris stems have seeped over the outline of the bigger white bird's back on the bigger one. This doesn't have the neat outlines of transfer work.

I suspect after looking with the loupe that irises are absolutely hand-painted, but the birds and bats may have been printed, although you can also feel faintly the outline of the birds' heads and beaks.

I attach two more photos, one a closeup of the flowers, I think you can see the white paint outline on them and the paint of the flower petals.

And one of the mark right side up (I hope!). Kaaren

[Stan]

Hi Kaaren, the fakers are getting better at faking, I bought a couple of plates a while back at a local auction, I did not go there and do a hand inspection as I normally would have done, but went by the pictures online, the pictures were blurry, but I could tell that the decoration was raised, and appeared to be hand painted, I won them at the auction, lucky for me I did not pay that much for the pair but after a hands on inspection I realized that the decoration was completely printed and then hand painted to make it appear hand painted but when I looked closer at the decoration I could see the dots underneath the hand painted areas, I would not have bought them had I known they were printed, I usually catch that but this time I did not do a hands on inspection, the dots would be symmetrical in appearance also the dark areas that would be overpainted would hide the dots even with a 10X loop, The moral of the story is, collectors do not like printed at all but sometimes a dish as nice as this is worth it.

[Kaaren B.]

Thanks for that information, Stan.

I did not know about the painting over the dots, so this is good education for me!

I only paid $1 for this at a yard sale on Sunday, especially as it had been damaged in one corner, so I won't cry over it!

Were you able to read the mark? Just curious.

Into the "donation bag" it goes! Kaaren

[Stan]

I could not read it, but the dots means that it is late 20th century, it might be the person that made it.

[Kaaren B.]

Many thanks, Stan!