Flower Vase with Floral Scroll

The upper part of this vase is painted in underglaze blue with a floral scroll of leaves accentuated with a single chrysanthemum motif on each face and bound at top and bottom with single blue lines. The box lid for the vase is short on detail; the inscription notes only that it is a flower vase with underglaze blue. It is possible that the box is a mismatch because the inscription does not mention the vase’s more distinctive feature: the deep green glaze on its lower half, which is seen much less frequently among Yohei III’s works. This glaze may be an example of a dark green porcelain glaze called rōkanji , which the artist invented in 1892. The name of the glaze comes from Chinese, in which it is pronounced langgan . It may literally mean “tinkling sound of jade” and could refer to malachite, among other proposed identifications.