Very unusual oriental cup and saucer

[Redsapph]

Really hoping someone can help with this, it was purchased by my grandmother but I cannot find anything like it anywhere online. I attach photos of them, I reckon it's hand painted but the faces of the subjects are different from each other in that I don't know if the men represented are western and the lady is Chinese or Japanese?  Any help will be appreciated!

[heavenguy]

This is Japanese Satsuma ware. The mark, I don't looks a little bit suspicious. Is it a set??? is it the better looking mark of all??

[Redsapph]

Thank you very much for helping and giving us a starting point.  My grandmother purchased this but I am afraid that we only have one cup and saucer.

I attach photos of the marks on both, hopefully from the two you can make sense of the mark.

[dswcmw]

Sorry to jump on this, but how do you get the pics to such a small size, as my phone camera only goes to 6 MB and I cant seems to make them small enough, many thanks

[Redsapph]

I email the picture to myself, on an iPhone it asks if
You want to send them small medium or large, I choose medium as they need to be under 200kb

[Stan]

This is Meiji period in my view, I have seen many items like this Satsuma cup and saucer marked on the bottoms some where the enamel is for the mark left blank others signed like this which is illegible, it is possible that they were signed in gold and over the years the gold has rubbed off.

[carlyoung]

I have seen a few myself , mostly vases , normally date late Meiji through to 1940's , looks 1920's-40's to me.

[peterp]

The mark is of no help. The first character looks like a ?, but not quite sure if is, the second character is practically invisible.

[heavenguy]

Maruni & Co >>???

[Stan]

I think your right,Heavenguy.

[heavenguy]

Hey Stan,

It's very hard to see bottom character but image IMG_7815.JPG shows the two lines character and can be easily confused with the cartouche lines. The age must be somewhere between the 20's and no later than 1938 according to Gotheborg website.

[Stan]

I disagree with Gotheburg, the cobalt blue color was used dominantly in the late Meiji period, the ones from the 20's were not as nice in my opinion.