Small Satsuma Box and Cover with Children at Play by Meizan YABU

A miniature box and cover of compressed globular form. The crackled ivory glaze is finely sprinkled with gilt dots and painted in coloured enamels and gold with a continuous frieze of children at play, the games probably representing a New Year theme. The cover is filled edge to edge with massed blossoms in pink, pale celadon, white and gold. A black band of gilt-ringed roundels frames both the cover and the foot. Inside, tiny butterflies are scattered across the base, a hidden detail visible only when the cover is lifted.

YABU Meizan, born Masashichi in Osaka, was the son of the Nanga painter YABU Chosui (1813–1867). In 1880 he established a workshop in Osaka that decorated Satsuma-style wares for export. Undecorated bodies were brought in from Kagoshima and painted in the workshop with minutely detailed scenes. The workshop became known for refining the use of copperplate-printed outlines, which allowed exceptionally fine drawing on a very small scale. This precise painting on small bodies is one of the main reasons his work is so highly regarded. Meizan's wares won prizes at international exhibitions, and he was appointed a commissioner for the Japan-British Exhibition in London in 1910. In 1920 Osaka Prefecture honoured him with an award for industrial merit. Works by YABU Meizan can be found in various museum collections, among which the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, the Museum für angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna, the Fondation Baur in Geneva and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Important private holdings include the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Japanese Art.

Compare: YABU Meizan, Small Bowl with Design of Diagonally Banded Millefleurs on Exterior and Butterflies on the Interior, late 19th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 46.39.11

Condition: Good, lid was broken and has been restored