This pair of small dishes, each fifteen centimetres across, offers two contrasting domestic scenes. On one, a girl plays the koto while her companions hang sheets of calligraphy on a kimono stand. On the other, a group of men drink soup beside a large tai, the sea bream that is a traditional symbol of celebration in Japan. Such intimate genre subjects show the studio’s figure painting at its most anecdotal.
Bonhams described the pair as rare. The dishes appear to be the same pair offered at Bonhams Knightsbridge in May 2009 (sale 16786, lot 52), an instance of a Meizan work whose market history can be followed over more than a decade. Each dish is signed on the base ‘Yabu Meizan’. Offered at Bonhams, Tradition Travel Transition: Japanese Art across the Centuries, London New Bond Street, on 4 November 2021, lot 209. It realised £12,112.50 including buyer’s premium, against an estimate of £4,000–£6,000.