A very large charger with a white elephant surrounded by children, some making mochi with the elephant’s help. Lawrence counts “more than 300 boys in the scene”, each painted with individual character (p. 168). In his notes he records a very similar charger (37.1 cm) with an identical signature in the Edward H. Williams Collection, formed before 1890 and sold at Christie’s New York in 1979, and a dish of very similar theme, smaller by 1.6 cm, in the Khalili Collection (no. 4).
Compare: Not the same object as the Bonhams 2022 charger on this site (36.5 cm, same mark): dimensions differ; not confirmed either way. Cf. Khalili S 4; Edward H. Williams Collection, Christie’s New York 1979 (37.1 cm), per Lawrence p. 188 nn. 66–67.
Description summarised from Louis Lawrence, Satsuma: The Romance of Japan (2011), pl. 116, pp. 168–169. Measurements and marks are as published and have not been checked against the object.