SIGNED KINKOZAN ZO DAI NIPPON KYOTO, AND SOZAN, AND WITH SOZAN GA ON ONE PANEL, MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH CENTURY)

Kinkozan Sobei I (d.1884) was the sixth generation of an illustrious family of potters of Kyoto, which had numbered tea bowl makers to the shogun. Sobei had studied under Aoki Mokubei, and around the time of the Imperial Restoration started to produce pottery decorated in the Satsuma style for export. His son Sobei II (d.1929) was further successful in continuing the business at Awataguchi in Kyoto, and the finest Kyo Satsuma ware was made by his studio. He won prizes at the Paris expositions of 1889 and 1890, St Louis in 1904, and Liège in 1905, and entered pieces in a different style at the 1910 London exhibition. Most of the Kinkozan pieces in the Krikorian collection probably date from the period of maturity of Kinkozan's Satsuma style between the middle 1880s and around 1905. Many of the best enamelled scenes are those signed by the painter Sozan, whose signature appears on this vase.