This small bowl, painted with birds and butterflies among peonies, is part of the Tetsuro Tanabe Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, in Shiga Prefecture. The museum dates it to the Meiji period. The bowl stands 7.2 centimetres high, with a mouth diameter of 12.3 centimetres and a base of 5.7 centimetres. Its combination of flowering peonies with birds and insects belongs to the bird-and-flower repertoire that ran alongside the studio’s figure subjects throughout its history.
The mark deserves comment. The museum records a seal reading only 明山 (Meizan), without the family name Yabu. Some sources associate a plain ‘Meizan’ mark with Yabu Tsuneo, who is reported to have continued the business after 1926, while others do not distinguish it. Without the mark itself available for comparison, this bowl cannot be securely placed within Yabu Meizan’s lifetime work, and it is listed here with that reservation.