This deep, slightly flaring bowl from the Yabu Meizan workshop is one of a small group of Meizan wares acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1910. Its exterior carries a continuous panorama of the Japanese countryside, with trees and buildings beneath a pale sky. Below, a ring of tall petal-shaped reserves filled with minute patterning circles the foot. The interior rim is painted with autumn maple, so the view continues as the bowl is turned and looked into.
The bowl was bought by its donor at the Japan–British Exhibition held in London in 1910. It came to the museum the same year through a gift from Lieutenant-Colonel Kenneth Dingwall DSO, made with Art Fund support. The museum’s register describes the decoration as overglaze enamels and gold over a crackled cream glaze on earthenware. The base bears the studio mark ‘Yabu Meizan’ in a square gilt panel. Few pieces by Meizan have so precise a moment of acquisition, which makes the bowl a useful fixed point for the studio’s mature landscape style. The museum dates it to 1905–1910.