This vase, 24 centimetres high, is painted on a fine crackled cream glaze with a dragonfly among morning glories and finished with a gilt rim. It belongs to the strand of Meizan’s work devoted to insects and flowering plants, in which a single natural vignette is given space on an open ground.
The vase was sold at Christie’s London (South Kensington) in May 2012 in ‘Masterful Exuberance’, a single-owner sale of Meiji decorative arts, and came from the Avo Krikorian Collection. It is signed ‘Yabu Meizan’. Offered at Christie’s, Masterful Exuberance, Artistic Craftsmanship of Imperial Japan: The Property of a Lady, London South Kensington, on 18 May 2012, lot 134. It realised £5,000 including buyer’s premium, against an estimate of £3,000–£5,000.