A deep bowl of about 1910, this is among the most animated of Meizan’s procession pieces. Around the exterior winds a yatai matsuri, a festival parade with costumed participants, banners and a float carrying a model of Mount Fuji. The figures are drawn at a tiny scale, yet each is individually characterised. Inside, the bowl is scattered with butterflies. One banner in the procession is inscribed ‘Dai Meizan’, a witty signature hidden within the scene itself.
The bowl belongs to the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, the largest assembly of Meizan’s work outside Japan, and it is sealed ‘Yabu Meizan’. An almost identical bowl was shown at the Japan–British Exhibition in London in 1910. This suggests that the composition was a favoured exhibition design that the studio could repeat from its stock of patterns. The bowl is published in Oliver Impey and Malcolm Fairley’s catalogue of the collection’s ceramics (1995) and in Joe Earle’s Splendors of Imperial Japan (2002), cat. 103.