This bottle vase has a slender neck ending in a garlic-bulb mouth. It is painted with a continuous scene of boats of many kinds on the water, along a shoreline lined with cherry trees in full bloom. On the neck, birds fly beneath trailing wisteria. The shoulder carries a lappet collar beneath a lozenge band, and a key-fret pattern finishes the foot.
The vase belongs to the remarkable group of Meizan works sold in New York in September 2014, a sale that included the frog vase and the Barron bowl. It is 15.5 centimetres high and signed in gilt ‘Yabu Meizan’. Offered at Bonhams, Fine Japanese Works of Art, New York, on 16 September 2014, lot 2273. It realised US$27,500 including buyer’s premium, against an estimate of US$10,000–US$15,000.