This pair of oviform vases, each with an everted neck and foot, is painted on a crackled cream ground in a scheme of stacked registers. A central band shows fishermen in boats, houses, trees and figures along the riverbanks, with mountains beyond. The shoulder carries a panel of adults and children in festival costume. Coiled bands of flower-heads and butterflies wrap the lower body above geometric borders at the foot, and the necks are banded with flowers and geometric designs.
The arrangement of landscape, genre and pattern in successive bands is a hallmark of the studio’s small vases of the period. Each vase is 13.2 centimetres high, signed ‘Yabu Meizan’, with a gilt seal on the base. Offered at Christie’s, Art of Japan, London, on 8 December 2016, lot 127. It realised £16,250 including buyer’s premium, against an estimate of £15,000–£20,000.